I love cheeseburrgers. Always have, always will. I have spent the better part of my life, once I got over my childhood aversion to most food, in search of the perfect cheeseburger. Many I have tried, and a select few have been deemed worthy of my quest. For years, I have read of Sacramento's renowned Squeezeburger, so named because it was fried up in a burger joint so small that patrons literally had to squeeze in just to place their orders. Given my continuous high-caloric search for perfect cheeseburgers, I had always assumed that this giant burger was so labeled because after eating it, you could no longer squeeze into your jeans!
I was delighted to find an online coupon deal for a Squeezeburger. Now the main reason I hadn't tried one yet was that there are no Squeeze Inns within fifty miles of my home. Fried food fancier that I am, it was still hard to justify driving a hundred miles just to cram a burger into my mouth. BUT, what if I included another activity with the burger jaunt?
Terribly excited, I checked around and located a roller rink not far from the Roseville Squeeze Inn. I needed accomplices, so I asked the two grandkids with the heartiest appetites if they'd like to go skating with Granny. Nine year-old Jaiden and six year-old Briar were pretty stoked. Briar had gone on a skating field trip in pre-school, Jaiden would be a newbie, and I hadn't skated for probably twenty-five years, but what the heck! It would be fun, and I'd be careful, so that I wouldn't end up in the hospital, with some young nurse calling my daughter to come pick up her kids because her crazy old mother had broken her hip in a freak roller rink mishap!
Saturday arrived, and I loaded the kids into my car. Then I loaded the Squeeze Inn's address into my navigator program. Off we went! We'd have Squeezeburgers for lunch, and then an afternoon of rollicking, rolling good fun. I'd waited years for this burger! Briar ordered a hot dog. The counter person suggested that Jaiden and I share a burger, given their hugeness. I was skeptical, and I am not good at sharing my food! I'm ashamed to admit that, but there you are. Nonetheless, not wishing to appear to be a total hog-beast, I ordered one burger, fries, and drinks.
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What makes a Squeezeburger unique is the large cheese skirt that hangs out beyond the bun. The slap on to the patty, I'm thinking, about a half a pound of shredded cheese, which melts out onto the griddle, forming a crunchy and lacy skirt, or as Jaiden calls it, a cheese doily. With slab-like slices of tomato, pickle, onion, and a crispy chunk of lettuce, the result resembles a very colorful flying saucer.
Jaiden and I proclaimed it splendid and promptly ordered another one to split. Thirty napkins later, we'd managed to eat most of the second burger. Put another notch in my Perfect Cheeseburger belt. On second thought, just buy me a bigger belt!
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Now off to the roller rink. As a southern California kid, I'd done my fair share of zooming merrily around on the old-fashioned, strap-onto-your-shoes numbers that you tightened with your handy-dandy skate key. As I got older, I'd go skating with friends at the local rinks with real lace-up skates. I was never a great skater, but I could go zippy-fast, could stop by performing a controlled crash into a wall, and rarely fell, When my own kids were younger, my husband and I often took them for Saturday night skating at the rinky-dink roller rink in the small Gold Rush town where we live.
I helped Briar and Jaiden into their skates, and laced up my own. Suddenly I felt a little trepidation. What's a granny doing in a roller rink? Justifying the consumption of a giant Squeezeburger, that's what! I vowed to be cautious. I also had two neophytes in my charge. This might be problematic. Amazingly, the skating proved to be like riding a bike--it felt great to me right away, and I hadn't forgotten how to do it. Jaiden and Briar lurched their way around the rink, crashing repeatedly, with me in close attendance to their needs. Being kids, they just picked themselves up and started all over again.
At one point, I noticed that Jaiden was down and very upset. I tooled over to her, bent down, and started to help her up. that's when our skated got tangled. In an instant, both my feet flew out in front of me, and I became airborne. A second later I crashed with a resounding thud, rump-first, then the back of the head. Even better, I managed to plant myself right onto the side of Jaiden's skate, its wheel waiting bludgeon-like in repose, to greet my right butt cheek. The pain was incredible and took my breath. But I was evidently not dead and I didn't think anything was broken. I became aware of a great stillness that overtook the rink as I lay splayed out on top of my granddaughter. A number of horrified skaters came to my rescue and got me to my feet again.
"Oh, I'm fine," I muttered. "We just got our skates tangled." I figured that since I was neither deceased or broken, I'd better get moving to prevent my muscles from freezing up, although the flaming pain I was feeling seemed to preclude that eventuality. Stoically, I wheeled on (Granny is nothing if not stoic! An idiot for sure, but a stoic idiot!). I managed to enjoy the skate, especially as the breeze I generated while my flattering granny-float-sleeves fanned me gently, as if mocking the searing pain I felt in my nether regions.
Uh-oh! Briar was now down in the dead center of the rink, and obviously needed some help. I was not going to do another butt-plant this time, no matter what. Very carefully, I tried to hoist him back to his feet, only to lose my own footing again. Nothing spectacular this time. Just a minor case of "Granny Down!' But, and it proved to be an even bigger but than my own throbbing Granny butt, I was completely unable to get back to my feet, and not for want of trying. There was nothing for me to grab hold of to stabilize myself, or to push up and off the floor with. Trying to use just my wheeled feet and a push off with my hands left me all akimbo on the floor, sitting morosely in the middle of the rink.
Well, I had to do something. Briar had recovered nicely from his fall and was off once more skating herky-jerky around the rink. Panic slowly started to set in as I sat there planted center-rink, under the pulsing strobe light. I had to do something, but I absolutely could not get to my feet. There was only one way for me to escape from my own self-inflicted disco inferno. I would have to crawl back to the safety of the padded floors and benches off-rink. The thought of that, however was too embarrassing--even for me, the Queen of Frequent Humiliation. I would not, could not, be reduced to crawling off the rink. I proudly (pathetically?) pulled myself up to full height--when standing on one's knees, of course--and began to inch my way off the planked and polished oval of my shame.
The skaters who had previously come to my rescue had now apparently deemed me unworthy of further assistance--a lost cause for sure--and I watched them in terror as they now raced past me at top speed. Now it seemed that I really could get killed out here, mowed down by a swarm of uncaring and and swift skaters. Luckily, there were gaps between the clusters of skaters who now took on the appearance to me of professional Roller Derby blockers and jammers. I was able to burst forth in a fast knee-walk for just a foot or two before having to stop and wait for another opening. I proceeded thusly, knee-walk/stop/look left and right/knee-walk/stop/look until I finally made it to the carpeted zone, where, huffing, humiliated, and exhausted, I dragged myself onto a bench,.
"That's it, kids! Skate time's over!"
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I was pretty damn sore on the ride home. I turned on the heated driver's seat and availed myself of its semi-soothing warmth. Granny might have to re-think this whole skating thing. But the Squeezeburger was AWESOME!
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This post originally appeared in a slightly different form in my blog "Plumpfeet Wonders."
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