From: trapper@nospam.primenet.com (Sunburnt)
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Subject: [alt.peeves] Where's the Beef?
Date: 24 Nov 1997 11:53:52 +0100

Subject: Where's the Beef? 
From: Jsn@galileo.cris.com (John S. Novak)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves

In a fucking crematorium, it seems.

Having freshly cashed a paycheck, recently, after a particularly
trying, irksome and annoying day, and being in little mood to cook,=20
I took it upon myself to find some grub.

I knew what I wanted.  I wanted a quintessentially American meal.
What did I want?  I wanted a burger and fries.  Not that cheap shit
they serve at McDonalds, but a good old fashioned, half pound slab of
ground beef on a bun, and a mess of thick cut fries.  What did I want
on my burger?  Something suitably unhealthy and tasty-- bacon and
cheese.  How did I want it cooked?

MEDIUM! FUCKING! RARE!

"Er, is medium okay, sir?"

I don't clearly remember what I said.  I don't think I said anything,
but I know I turned on the over-the-spectacles glare that used to push
undergraduates down to their trembling, supplicating knees.  That was
enough to convey my opinion of the notion.

"We're, uh, not allowed to serve hamburgers medium rare."

I continued the glare.

Somewhat nervously, "The FDA won't let us!"

"There is an FDA ban on _medium rare beef_?"

"Well, we're not allowed to sell any ground beef less than medium,
unless it's ground in the restaurant."

You've got to be fucking with me.  By all rights, I should have gotten
up and left, but I had ordered my drink while looking over the menu,
and to be frankly honest, I was too damned mentally exhausted to
smell the danger signs.

Naturally, when the burger arrived, there wasn't so much as a bloody
hint of pink inside it.  It was a uniform, bland, greyish colour.  In
my book, that's not even medium-well, that's just plain well-done.  I
cannot even imagine what I would have received if I had ordered a
well-done burger.  Probably would have received a small lump of coal
on bread.=20

But that's only the side peeve.  It's a local problem, is an
establishment's inability to prepare food to my order.  You pays your
money, you takes your chances, and I'll certainly never be seen in
that establishment again.  Annoying, peevesome, but not rant-worthy.

Rant-worthy, however, is the terrible fact that in this once-proud
land of builders and bankers, movers and shakers, the FD fucking A has
apparently decided that medium rare beef is just _too dangerous_ a
commodity to be supplied by any facility.  Oh, no, you can't ground
beef at the packing plant, freeze it, ship it in a cold truck, thaw it
and cook it.  You have to freeze the beef at the packing plant, ship
it in a cold truck, thaw it, ground it and cook it.

Anything else is just too horrific to consider.  Someone, somewhere,
might conceivably get sick.  Jesus Christ munching a bacon
cheeseburger in front of the Wailing Wall, what the fuck is the
collective matter with us?  Is it too much to ask that I be exempt
from stupid, pickayune, needlessly invasive rules to protect
namby-pamby fuckwits while enjoyin a basic pleasure of life?

I'll sign the fucking waiver.  I won't fucking sue.  I won't hold
anyone accountable, goddammit!  I will take my life in my own hands,
on my own authority, and risk the horrors of medium rare beef.

But I am not allowed.

I live in a land governed by sheep, where the tyranny of the majority
has devolved into the tyranny of the timourous.

Excuse me, I'm going to go break the law, and make myself a burger.