Much Ado about NOTHING

I'm a creature of habit. Every Friday, a group of us from work go to the same Newark bar/restaurant for lunch, and I almost always order the same thing: a "McGoo Burger", which, in more ordinary diner lingo, would probably be called a burger deluxe. It's just a hamburger and fries, well done (and I order it well done) for what it is. I wash it down with a Yeungling.

I have no idea why it's called a McGoo burger. (The people I lunch with think it should be called a "McGates burger".) Was it named after someone? Mr. McGoo? That was the name of an old TV cartoon about a blind, or nearly blind, old miserly millionaire who had silly predicaments related to his extreme nearsightedness, which he never admitted to as his affliction. (He didn't wear glasses, just squinted). The character was voiced by the actor Jim Backus, who also played Mr. Howell, with the same Connecticut lock-jaw accent, on Gilligan's Island and was in that movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World that I caught on TV not long ago. So, when I eat the burger, I think about a nearsighted millionaire cartoon character. It's better than thinking about a poor dead cow, or why I'm so unadventurous in my eating habits.

All you scribblers searching for "writing prompts" who land on this page: just write about the first thing that pops into your coconut.