"cheeseburger, no cheese"

Quite some time ago, we used to enjoy having lunch at the Hungry Bear Restaurant in Disneyland. They had decent burgers, there was a lot of seating so that was convenient for our usually large group that would meet for lunch on Sundays, and it had a nice view of the Rivers of America for when we'd just hang out afterwards and chat. We stopped going there some time ago, pretty much when Disney seemed to become completely incapable of serving a decent burger inside either of the two parks (side note - but the burgers are great at Whitewater Snacks). On one of our last visits to Hungry Bear, a few of us had put in our orders and were waiting for our food when we overheard a random stranger ordering their food in what we thought was an odd fashion. The person ordered a cheeseburger, with no cheese. Ummm, ok, isn't that just a hamburger? Why not order a hamburger? And then we looked at the menu more closely. Since all of us would routinely order the cheeseburger, none of us had noticed that they had completely taken the hamburger off the menu. So, you *couldn't* order a hamburger. You had to order a cheeseburger and ask them to hold the cheese, but whereas you would previously have had to pay extra for the cheese, you now were paying more anyway, even if you didn't want the cheese or perhaps couldn't even eat the cheese, for those who are lactose-intolerant. That's pretty much a subtle price increase.

Bearing that occurrence in mind, a friend sent me this article about a similar quest to order a hamburger extra value meal at McDonald's. What my friend probably doesn't realize, though, is that the story doesn't just remind me of our Hungry Bear adventure, but it also reminds me of a trip that the husband and I and a friend of ours took to San Antonio to visit the Sea World park there some years ago, the trip that gave birth to the catch phrase "but I pushed the button". Maybe I'll remember to tell that story on here sometime.

Anyway, I did find the article to be interesting, but what I was actually more fascinated with were the multiple comments in response to the article. I am particularly amused by the haughty people who proclaim a supposedly obvious solution, completely oblivious to the fact that the suggested solution had been brought up multiple comments ago and a reasonable explanation of why that solution doesn't work has already been given. But these are probably the same people who bulldoze their way into topics on newsgroups and discussions boards with the hated phrase "I haven't read what everyone else has said, but here's what I think".

Now, admittedly, I only read the first page of comments, but that means I read 100 of the 158 posted comments, so that's not bad. I laughed pretty hard through many of the comments and rolled my eyes a few times as well.

I hope we don't get to the point where I'm going to have to order "lemonade, no lemons and no sugar".