A Resolution to be More Honest

A hush fell over the Ecoburger Diner when old Smiley Rawlinson came out of the kitchen, glanced at the menu board, and then with one determined swipe of the blackboard eraser, removed the infamous “Mushroom Burger Surprise.” They would have started whispering about it if he didn’t also immediately start writing something new, and so instead the silence stretched as everyone craned their necks to see. Smiley stepped back and dusted his hands of chalk, and the patrons read what he set down.

Melinda gasped. Artie raised his burly white brows. Rosemary’s eyes widened and she hid what might have been an exasperated giggle behind a hand. And young Tony Farley, he had to read it twice, and then he dropped his half-eaten Ecoburger Classic and coughed up half a lung.

Artie clapped him on the back, an old folk cure for choking if ever there was one, and when Tony recovered his breath he wheezed for a moment and downed half his cola. But when he looked at the sign it was still the same – no trick of the imagination – and his stomach churned anew. For it still said:

Our Pattie’s Are Now 100% “Horse Meat”

“You all right, son?” said Smiley, hands crossed over his apron, chewing a toothpick as always to stave off the old cigarette impulse.

“Good lord,” said Tony. And then again, “Good lord.”

“Is that right, Smiley?” said Melinda, jutting her chin towards the menu board.

Smiley glanced at the board, as though inspecting the changes someone else made. There was a determination to his nod.

“Sure is right,” he said.

“Wondering why you’d make a change like that,” Melinda said.

“Well, it’s a new year and all,” said Smiley. “Elsie passing six months back got me thinking. About life and death, that kind of stuff.”

“She was a good woman,” said Artie.

“Sure was. Best that would have me, no contest. Anyway, got me thinking maybe my time’s limited here. Maybe it was time to start living… I don’t know. More godly. And I figured, what better way than being more honest.”

“That’s the best policy,” said Rosemary, sipping her coffee. “Always was.”

“Yeah, I figured. And what better time to start, than with a new year? So there you have it. If I’m entirely honest, that mushroom burger was a disaster. I don’t think I sold more than a dozen in as many years.”

“It was certainly,” said Artie, drawing the word out, “unique.”

“Bad, Artie. You can say it. Tasted like cardboard and shredded newspapers.”

Tony watched the exchange with wide-eyes, only periodically glaring down at his plate suspiciously.

“I don’t know why,” Rosemary said. “I like mushrooms. You should have used portobellos though.”

Smiley waved his hand dismissively. “In a glorified roadside diner? Please, this isn’t a portobello town and you know it.”

“Oh, maybe it didn’t used to be, but people change, Smiley. Everything changes with time.”

“Yeah, but not these things. Heck, next you’ll be telling me people would swap their fried chicken for coq au vin.”

“What-Alvin?”

“Exactly!”

“Guys!” Tony shouted. “Forget the mushrooms!” He pointed at the menu board with a trembling finger. “What about that!?”

“What do you mean?” asked Smiley.

“The horse meat! What do you mean horse meat!?”

Smiley glanced at the board, then at Tony, then the board again. “Well,” he began, speaking really slowly, with impeccable enunciation and exaggerated hand gestures, “the patties are made of meat, from horsies. Neigh, clop clop, et cetera.”

Tony flushed green. When he saw Artie take a bite from his own Ecoburger Classic, chewing it happily as though he hadn’t just heard the atrocity Smiley said, Tony covered his mouth to drown a gag.

“How can you eat that, Artie!? It’s horse!”

Artie glanced at his burger, shrugged. Took another bite.

“Horse!”

“I’ve had weirder.”

“Weirder? What could be weirder! You accidentally open up a can of dog soup?”

Artie grinned. “Well, you know those scrambled eggs I make on Sundays?”

“Yeah?”

“And how I say they’re brain food?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, Tony. That’s because of the pork brains scrambled with the eggs.”

Tony got up and scrambled to the bathroom.

“Hmm,” said Artie. “I thought he knew.”

“I thought everyone knew,” said Melinda.

“Young folk these days,” said Smiley, shaking his head. “They’ll talk your head off about reducing waste, but push comes to shove, let me tell you. Still, I think I’ll have to hold off a couple years before I put crickets on the menu.”

“Don’t worry about him,” said Rosemary. “Tony’ll come around.”

“Yeah, I ain’t worried.” Smiley looked at his menu board and, uncharacteristically, smiled. “It just feels good to see it up there. Like, a weight’s been lifted.”

The others all nodded and mm-hmm’d. 

“And horse meat is so much more eco-friendly than beef, too,” Smiley finished.

“Okay now,” Melinda said, setting her coffee down. “How do you figure that one? Horses aren’t exactly smaller than cows. It’s still the same energy-inefficient meat pyramid we’re sitting on, just with a different saddle.”

“Ah, but that’s just it. Cow-meat farming uses up huge resources, vast tracts of land, and produces massive waste, while horse-meat farming is comparatively a drop in the bucket.”

“But,” Melinda sputtered, “that’s because nobody farms horse meat! You can’t compare them like that! If the horse meat industry was the same scale as cow meat, it would be just as environmentally destructive.”

“True,” said Smiley. “But you’re talking numbers and science, and this is about marketing. Until horse meat becomes as popular and well developed as cow meat, I am perfectly justified in saying it’s eco-friendly.”

Melinda rolled her eyes.

“Wicked old man,” Rosemary said, with a grin.

Smiley topped up their coffees. “Oh, actually, I’ll do you one better.”

“Let’s hear it,” said Artie.

“My horse meat is organic, too.”

“Hmm,” said Melinda. “Because the horses don’t eat pesticides?”

“Because horses are carbon based life forms.”

The customers groaned and chuckled.

“And now,” Smiley continued, “we’ve added some science back into the equation, so I don’t feel so bad about the marketing. Now, I just wonder, are horses gluten free?”

Just then Tony shambled back to the counter. He pointed his finger at Smiley, then at his half-eaten burger.

“This is your restaurant, Smiley, and I respect that. Lord knows I do. But you can’t just swap to horse like it’s nothing, and leave all your loyal customers in the dust! I demand you keep the Ecoburger Classic – the actual Classic – on the menu, and unchanged! For those of us who refuse to eat horse!”

Smiley raised his brow.

“And furthermore, I demand you swap out this, this thing, for a Classic Classic right now! At no cost to me. I think my loyalty warrants that.”

Smiley looked at the others, who were just as surprised as he was. Without a word, he picked up Tony’s tray and walked back to the kitchen. A moment later, he came back out, with an almost identical tray and an almost identical burger, save for being whole.

Tony lifted the top bun and inspected the patty.

“This is an original?”

Smiley nodded.

“The way you always made them?”

“Sure is.” Smiley smiled. “The way I always made them.”

He went back to his menu board and put up a new item:

Ecoburger Original Classic: “Without” Horse Meat

Satisfied, Tony bit into his burger and savoured his victory.