In Wendy's: 1994

*
"So man, did you like that Pixies record?," D'Arcy asked. He popped a ketchup-soaked fry into his mouth, chomping lustily. He and I were eating identical Wendy's combos, our first food of the day. I was visiting him in Stratford over our summer break between first and second year. I was twenty years old.

"Yeah. I like almost all the songs. I can see why Nirvana copied those guys," I said. Rudely, my mouth was full of burger; my words kind of came out sounding like, "meef-meef, morf." But it didn’t matter. It wasn't like this was some fancy restaurant. And D'Arcy certainly didn’t give a shit either. I decided to wallow in medieval decadence.

D'Arcy slupped some pop out of his yellow cup. Or soda, as he insisted on calling it. "Fuck, man. We need to get some bevvies later. We have nothing for our party." The party was going to be a post-concert party. D’Arcy played drums in his band, The Puckering Rectums, and they had a show that night. They had these t-shirts with a dancing gingerbread man on the front. Why a gingerbread man? His brother, their bassist, thought it would freak people out. But more importantly, the rectum logos they had tried to stencil on their t-shirts basically ended up looking like big splotches of shit, so they had to try something else.

"Gingerbread men are easy," explained his brother.

I lifted my cup and took a long drink. It was funny how often I did stuff just because D'Arcy did. Sometimes, it was like we could read each other’s minds. With some alarm, I realized how we were even dressed the same today. Same shirt, same shoes...ah well. Everybody wore jeans, right? My mind shifted gears when I saw a cute girl walking by. Dressed seasonally, I noticed with approval.

A great idea suddenly inspired me. Finishing my soda in long, honking draughts, I leaned my head back and released a gloriously loud, wet belch:

“BUUUUUUUUUPP!!”

With instantaneous insight, I knew that this would be the loudest and most resonant burp I would ever produce. This historical fact wasn't lost on the patrons at Wendy's. There was utter silence; I saw some long stares of disgust. In the background, I could hear only the sizzle of the deep-fryers; even the beeping of the cash registers had stopped momentarily.

D'Arcy goggled comically, his chipmunk cheeks bulging with food. "Fu-uuuck, man!," he gasped. A chunk of fry flew out of his mouth. "That was totally uncalled for!" We both roared unrestrained hyena laughter, as though nobody else was in the restaurant. We bunched up our food wrappers.

Walking out, we spared not a backwards glance. We were busy men, after all - there was beer to buy, and music to play.

It was already a great day.