“It started one afternoon last week, the very day I decided I’d better start keeping the sales records.”
“You kept records only for last week?”
“I’m a busy man here, Peter,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “Go ahead.”
“I was standing around here waiting for somebody to walk in and order something,” said Porky, “and I got to thinking about what I was going to have for lunch myself. I looked through the menu, and I said to myself, ‘I’ve had about as many clams as I can stand. A hamburger would sure taste good about now.’ I thought I might go up to the diner and get one, but I said to myself, ‘Wait a minute. Why give good money to the competition? I can buy some ground beef and cook one right here.’ So that’s what I did. And it was pretty good, let me tell you. I made myself some fries and onion rings to have on the side. I had forgotten to buy ketchup, so I had to use tartar sauce, which was a little odd, but still it was pretty good.”
“A hamburger with tartar sauce?” I said.
“Yep,” he said. “Not bad, really. Kind of exotic. I had some ground beef left, so I listed it on the menu. The Captain’s Burger. Served with Tartar Sauce.”
“And it’s been doing well?”
“It’s our best seller,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t mind telling you it upsets me. I feel that this development calls my entire dream into question. My whole vision. The chain of clam stands to start with, the family-style sit-down clam restaurants after that, the sophisticated late-night clam bars, the souvenir ashtrays, the swizzle sticks with the little clams on top of them, the whole thing.”
“Well, let’s not worry too much yet. Let me see the figures.”
“Here you go. Sorry I’m so frazzled. It’s just that these hamburgers have blown me off course. I had my whole successful rise to the top of the restaurant industry mapped out. But now—”
“Are these in multiples of a hundred or something?”
“Huh?”
“A thousand?”
“What do you mean?”
“Here. Where it says ‘six.’ Is that six hundred or six thousand?”
“Six.”
“Just six?”
“Yeah.”
“Six hamburgers?”
“Yeah.”
“Six?”
“Yeah.”
“This is our best-selling item, and we sold six?”
“It’s been a little slow.”
“And what does this mean? Here—these two little lines.”
“Those are sort of IOUs.”
“IOUs?”
“Yeah. I owe for those.”
“You bought two of these hamburgers?”
“Well, three, actually. But I figured I paid for the first one by buying the meat, you know?” His shoulders dropped as if a wet blanket had been thrown over them. “I think the dream is over, Peter,” he said. “The customer is always right, you know what I mean? If they want hamburgers, and apparently they do, then hamburgers are what we ought to be giving them. I hate to have to say this to you, because I know you had faith in me when I didn’t have anything but a dream, but I take a certain pride in the fact that I’m a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong, and I have to say to you now that I’ve been barking up the wrong tree, Peter. Clams are—well—they’re a marginal snack food. They’re not going to bring in the Big Money.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Peter,” he said, and he swallowed hard before going on, “I think we should convert to hamburgers. One hundred percent. Turn our backs on clams. Never look back. If we really work at it, we could redecorate this place in a couple of days and then reopen with an all-hamburger decor. Maybe we could even wear little hats, like berets, in the shape of hamburgers. Say—”
[to be continued]
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🎧 632: “It started . . .”