Hamburglar

This is one of my favorite stories. It's about when I went down to Chicago last year for an anime convention. Normally, due to most people heaving a heavy sigh and rolling their eyes, I would not give a detail like that unless it was absolutely necessary, however in this case it is. ACen, or Anime Central, is one of the biggest-if not the biggest- anime convention in North America, or at least the Midwest. 15,000+ people show up annually now to attend and hang out with other nerdy people.

With all these people there, everyone has to eat somehow, so just a mile away from the convention center is a McDonalds. It also happens to be the only fast food restaurant around so everyone flocks to this to get some quick, warm, fast food. That being said, every time I went, it was packed with people of all sorts of walks of life. Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, tall, short, young, old and all went to this McDonalds to quickly fill up on the fatty foods that McDonalds had in its dispersal.

The line, no matter what time of day it was, would be many customers long. One or two would go up at a time, give their order, and stand off to the side or otherwise wait at a table for their food. Once it was finished, the order would be brought out, called, and the employee would then walk away from the food, preparing whatever was next. The customers would then be happy that their order was finally set and retrieve it. The circle of life. And that's how it went every single time I went.

Except one.

Now, considering this is an anime convention, lots of people are dressed up. Sorcerers, cat girls, warriors, pok'e'mon, random henchmen from the background of that esoteric show and for the employees who were so fervently working on cranking out orders lest they fall behind, could not have possibly noticed another patron dressed up like everyone else sitting on the sidelines was dressed up as the Hamburglar.

Anime convention or not, I know that when a Hamburglar is sitting in a McDonalds, some shit is going to go down, so I stood in line, keeping my eye on this man, who sat, patiently with a gleam in his eye that one with only nefarious intentions could have. Finally, the time had come. A huge order, full of McChickens, McDoubles, Big Macs, fries and nuggets came out to the counter in two heaping bags for a party of ten or more came to the counter. It was called out, and the happy party stood up, ready to get their meals.

The Hamburglar knew that he was not going to get another chance like this. He had to strike now or never strike at all. He leaped down from his chair, rushed the counter before their rightful owners even had a chance, grabbed the two bags in his arms, zig-zagged his way between customers, kicked open the exit, and dashed off.

The restaurant froze. Nobody knew what to do. Even the managers at the counter were shocked, actions suspended with disbelief. Finally, one of the huge party stammered out, "Th-the uh....Hamburglar kinda....stole our food? Ca-can we uh...have our order again...?"

The manager just stood there, mouth agape. Looking back at the door hoping it was a cruel prank, and looking back at the customers, he just shook his head and said, "Yeah, RERUN THE ORDER"

It was the most brilliant moment at the convention.