WENDY'S AT 9AM?

"You know what would really hit the spot right about now?"

"I don't know, what?"

"Some Wendy’s."

"Wendy’s?"

"Yeah. Don’t you think it’s the perfect time for Wendy’s?"

"No. Not really. It's like…nine in the morning."

"Yeah, I know. But, still. It would taste good."

The dolt requesting a greasy hamburger at 9AM was my future wife. She’d flown out from California to visit me a few days earlier and was staying with me at my apartment in the city.

The night before had gone well. We did the dinner thing. We did the movie thing. I tried my best to do my own version of the romance thing and to top it all off, I even gave the whole sweet lovin’ thing a go.

While I didn’t do any of those things particularly well individually, lumped together in a big date night stew, I like to think the whole proved better than the sum of its parts.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

In any case, it was the next morning, I’d just woken up and the lovely-insane bastard beside me was insisting that a sloppy, grease-ridden burger from Wendy’s would “hit the spot.”

She’d obviously gone bonkers.

Wendy’s? Really? At nine in the morning? She had to be joking. What sort of screwed up screwhole eats a Wendy’s hamburger at nine in the morning? Even, Dave Thomas wouldn’t do that. Even the corpse of, Dave Thomas wouldn’t do that.

I’m not even kidding.

If you tried to wedge a piping hot bacon cheeseburger between his decaying choppers, he’d spit that garbage right out.

To make matters worse, I looked out the window and noticed that it was pouring freezing rain. It was early December - in Ohio – and it was raining. It was frostbite weather. It was stay outside and lose your toes weather. She must have been off her rocker if she thought for a second that I would walk five blocks through the city in that nonsense.

Intent on keeping the peace, I offered something else instead. "Can't I just make you eggs or something? Don’t eggs sound good? Wouldn't it be cool if I made some eggs for you?"

"I'd really like Wendy’s."

Damn it.

I tried to sweeten the pot. "Tell you what…I'll make them naked. How about that? Naked eggs? Come on. You’re not going to sit there and turn down naked eggs, are you?"

"Sorry. I just have a taste for Wendy’s."

Double damn it.

"It's like fifteen below zero out there…and it's raining…ice. You see the ice rain, right?"

“I know. It would mean a lot to me though."

Shit.

This broad wasn’t going to let this go. She was set on the idea of Wendy’s and she wasn’t going to budge. Even the promise of naked eggs couldn’t turn her away. Naked eggs!

I suppose if I were blessed with a larger set of balls and wasn't such a pushover when it came to women who were willing to let me even suggest naked eggs without slapping on a restraining order, I would have explained to her in no uncertain terms that Wend’s simply wasn’t in the cards.

I am a pushover though. I’m a pushover and a schmuck and ten minutes later I was bundled up in a winter jacket and leaving my building like the schmucky, pushover, no-balled schmuck that I’d always be.

Naked eggs would have been so much more fun.

The wind was blowing like an angry working girl after a twelve-hour shift. It didn’t like me and I didn’t like it, but neither of us were going anywhere. Icy cold rain stabbed me in the face like knives, or a million cheek pinches from a million annoying aunts all at once.

The sidewalks were coated, and shimmering and slippery. Every step was a cautious one. Every movement had to be carefully planned and tested before completed.

A single car drove slowly by and the person inside looked at me like I was a crazy man.

They had no idea.

By the time I arrived at Wendy’s, frostbite had set in and my fingers were utterly useless. My jaw was clattering. There were icicles hanging off my eyebrows and my eyelids were frozen open. Blinking was no longer an option. I couldn’t feel my ears. For all I knew, they’d fallen off along the way.

I'd transformed into, Brundle fly.

I was falling apart.

The worst thing about it -I still had to go back.

She just had to have Wendy’s!

No! Naked eggs weren’t good enough for, Princess California! She had to have Wendy’s and she required me to put my life on the line to get it! She asked me to undertake a journey that put the trek to Modor to shame!

Tomorrow morning she was getting eggs. And not even naked eggs.

She blew her chance at naked eggs.

Fifteen minutes later I stumbled into the apartment with a bag of Wendy’s in what was essentially a block of ice. "Here you go…Wendy’s. Let me just say, this better be the best damn Wendy’s you've ever eaten considering what I went through to get it for you."

She lowered her head, ashamed.

Damn straight.

"I'm sorry Steven...I'm not even really hungry."

Wait. What?

"What the hell? Then what did you send me to Wendy’s for?"

"I had to use the bathroom."

"Huh?"

"I had to use the bathroom, and I didn't want to do it with you in the apartment."

The next time I make naked eggs I'm lacing them with poison.