Climbing Roastburger Mountain

Well, I finally did it. After months of longing to try an Arby’s Roastburger, I finally ate one. And I only had to walk up fourteen flights of stairs to eat it.

Let me ‘splain.

Last night, we had storms in Chicago. This morning, we woke up with no water and no air conditioning. It was a power issue, we were told, and Giant Massive Power Company was working on it.

By 5:00 PM, we still had no water or air conditioning. Then Iwanski called me at work to tell me that now the elevators weren’t working in our building, either. Our apartment management told him that Giant Massive Power Company was waiting on some part to fix the problem, and then all three would be up and running again.

Iwanski suggested that I might want to stay at work later tonight, to wait for everything to be fixed.

So I worked and I waited. I called him at 6:00 PM. Still no water/air conditioning/elevators. Then at 6:30 PM. Still not working.

Finally, at close to 7:00 PM, I had had enough of this work crap and was ready to come home…even if it meant that I had to walk up the twenty-one flights to our apartment.

On my way home, I called Iwanski. “The water just came on,” he reported.

“Yay!” I replied. “I’m going to stop and get us some Arby’s.” I was so glad that I’d be coming home to all the modern conveniences of elevators, running water, and air conditioning. An occasion like this, I thought to myself, calls for a Roastburger.

So I forked over the $3.59 (man, some fast food sandwiches are pricey!), plus the cost of Iwanski’s requested foods, and walked home, gleefully carrying the bag with my precious Roastburger in it.

As I approached the elevators in our building, I could see that something was wrong. For one thing, there were like ten people waiting in the lobby. For another thing, three of the elevators were standing wide open, with the lights off.

“What’s going on? Are the elevators working?” I inquired.

“Only one of them,” said the woman standing in front of me.

Okay. One elevator. I could live with this.

So all ten of us piled into the one working elevator, and it slowly closed and began ascending.

After a few floors, all of the sudden the whole elevator jolted, and then stood still.

“Oh man,” said a fellow passenger.

“Oh shit!” I said. I am pretty clausterphobic at times, so I absolutely dread getting stuck in an elevator. “Someone push the down button,” I said. “I want to get off.”

Suddenly, the elevator jolted again and began going down. It got down to the first floor, but then the door didn’t open.

We all stood there holding our breaths.

The elevator jolted once more, and once again began ascending. It stopped on the seventh floor, and the door finally opened.

“I’m getting off!” I proclaimed, and one dude and I both pushed our way out.

“What floor do you have to walk up to?” I asked the dude as we began walking up the stairs.

“The ninth floor,” he said. “How about you?”

“The twenty-first floor,” I replied.

“Whew, man—you’re athletic,” he remarked.

“Not really,” I said. “I just hate getting stuck in elevators. I once got stuck in an elevator in this building, for ten minutes. I was really scared.”

“I can understand that,” he said as he opened the door for the ninth floor. “Good luck!”

“Thanks!” I replied, and continued to huff and puff my way up the stairs.

On the thirteenth floor, I called Iwanski and told him that I was on my way up the stairs.

“Oh my gosh, honey! I’m sorry!” (Iwanski often apologizes for things that aren’t his fault.)

“It’s—okay,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I’ll be up soon.”

Finally, I made it up to our apartment.

Still huffing and puffing, I settled down to eat my Roastburger.

So after all that…how was the Roastburger, you may ask?

Well, it was nothing but a damn roast beef sandwich!

Yeah, I don’t know what I was expecting, but the advertisements had just made it look SO good. But when it came right down to it, it was just a big roast beef sandwich with no sauce on it.

No sauce! What were they thinking?! Don’t they know that Miss Healthypants likes her food MOIST? (That’s my #1 requirement of food—it’s got to be moist. Buck can attest to that.)

So I squeezed some barbecue sauce on it and polished off my long-awaited Roastburger, which turned out to be just a regular ole’ roast beef sandwich.

I’ve learned an important lesson today. Sometimes the anticipation is much better than the Roastburger.