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One would think I’d already learned my lesson.

It’s another Wednesday, and I’ve gone back to Burger King because… well… I’m hungry and I’ve got forty minutes to eat lunch nestled smack in the middle of six hours of back-to-back scheduled arrangements.

I work my way to the register where Jeremy the mathematically-challenged cashier sees me coming, whimpers slightly, and ducks back into the kitchen to hide.  Sensing a disturbance in the BK Force, an assistant manager who bears a striking resemblance to Pedro Sanchez springs up to the counter. “Can I take your order?”

“Sure. I’ll have a Whopper combo… no cheese… King size… with fries… for here.”

Clickity clack. ”That’ll be $6.29.”

An image of Sisyphus pops briefly into my mind, but I toss it aside as unhelpful. “No, it’ll be $5.76.  I promise.”

Pedro looks a bit surprised, and rerings the items again.  “It still comes up $6.29.”

“Look, I’ve got a pocket calculator, if it’ll help.”

“Oh wait,” exclaims Pedro with a sudden look of deep understanding, “I know what it is.  It’s a Wednesday!”

He smiles triumphantly, as if this should clear it all up.  I take a deep breath and try in my mind to prepare the easiest possible explanation that the laws of mathematics, and in particular, those govrning basic arithmetic, do not vary with the days of the week.  As I decide on the best order in which to present the Peano axioms to him, Pedro motions to a small cardboard sign just to the right of the register that indicates that Wednesdays are Whopper Special Days. 

He then adds helpfully “$6.29 is the special promotional price.”

I find this hard to believe. “The special promotional price is more expensive than the usual price?”

“Well,” replies Pedro, now back on top of his game, “you get the cheese for a discount on Wednesdays.  Normally it’s $6.49 with cheese.”

“That would be a good deal if I wanted cheese.”

Pedro smiles.

“…But I don’t want cheese, please.”

“That’s okay, I already put no cheese in the order.”

“But I’m still paying for the cheese.”

“But it’s a discount, see?”

Another image of Sisyphus pops into my head.

“Can I,” I ask very slowly and distinctly, “order a… non-cheese Whopper combo… which is not the promotional combo… for the non-promotional price… that is, the regular price?”

“Well, the computers automatically put the promotional price on Wednesdays.  It’s kind of hard to do…”

“I brought a calculator.”

“Yeah, well I can do it, but I have to enter things in a different order and it’s kinda…”

“Thank you very much,” I reply sweetly.

Pedro stares at me for a second, grumbles slightly, and then goes on to make a big show of ringing up the order, overriding the Wednesday promotion using his assitant-managerial-powers, and then re-entering the standard combo savings.  “That’ll be $5.76.”

“You bet it is,” I say happily, and pay the man.

A few minutes later I had the best Whopper ever, a burger that tasted partly of char-broiled beef and partly of quantum cheese, but mostly of victory.