Roy Kroc, the man who made McDonald’s into the purveyor of billions of Big Macs, Royales with Cheese, and reconstituted French Fries once said that “As long as you’re green you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you rot”. Look at the photo above and meditate upon that metaphor.
That burger is about fifteen years old. Recalling how my brother would drive and hour and a half to McDs when he was a geologist in a uranium mine in the middle of nowhere Wyoming I decided to give him one for his birthday many years ago. Figured I should make sure preparation was up to snuff so took a bite before wrapping it up.
He was thrilled and I was pleased. I’m older and have always looked out for him and taken pains with instruction related to the Golden Rule. Imagine then how greatly I was moved when six months later I loosed a ribbon on a box from him and found the same sandwich!
Not to overdo a good thing and drain the exchange of its cathartic potential, we don’t pass the two patties, special sauce, sesame seed bun, et al back and forth more often than every several years. I’d forgotten about it in fact and was thus thrilled to find it in a package for me under the Christmas Tree this year. J
Back to the metaphor. From the one mouthful, I can attest to its original ripeness, but as you can see there was no subsequent rot to the rest. No rodent, bug, bacteria, or bit of mold has ever paid it the least attention. It is not at all fragile. A recent incredulous visitor knocked it off of my desk by accident and reassembly was a snap.
I don’t get it. Could McDonald’s have the key to immortality?
The Subtle Landscape 
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