In-N-Out Burger: When Magic and Beef Collide

I vividly remember my first experience eating at In-N-Out burger. My brother and I had just gone to the Jelly Belly factory and then we decided to go outlet shopping. I must explain: outlet shopping is not a chore for Kevin. Most guys are like “I don’t like this,” but my mom and I figured out, when he was trying to tell her that she should kill time by “outlet shopping” (and she didn’t really want to, because who wants to fly all the way to northern California to do the same thing you can do in any other place) it kind of dawned on both of us that he is the one that loves outlet shopping.  He was pushing it on her, because he secretly just wanted to do it himself. He’s like “oh my god, the have a Burberry outlet, THEY HAVE A BURBERRY OUTLET!” So, it was food time, and we were like “hey, let’s check out that In-N-Out burger place” We go in, and Kevin drops me at the door because, I think he had trouble parking. I don’t remember the specifics, but I do remember standing in a long line and him trying to call me back over to the door because the “line was too long” there was already a few people behind me, so I was reluctant to get out of line. I finally relented and walked over and we had a little “no way the line is too long” “I’m too fucking hungry to leave” dispute. I ended up winning out, thankfully, and we went back in line and ordered the food.

(In-N-Out Burger makes me happy to live in America, or at least California.)

That was a point were I didn’t know you could get grilled onions. So, I got the regular onions and I remember it being intense, but I also remember it being one of the best burgers I had ever eaten.

We ended up learning from a California native about the “animal style” and the “grilled onions” and the “extra crispy fries” and all that fun stuff.  I went back a second time and got the grilled onions, and I was completely sold.  Another thing I liked about it was that I could eat all that food for five dollars AND I could eat it all. Save, a few freedom fries toward the end.

(I use to pick fast-food places based on whether or not they had a ketchup pump. I'm over that now, because I'm not three years old anymore.)

This was the beginning of not only my relationship with In-N-Out Burger, but also my GPS’s relationship with In-N-Out. (By the end of this blog entry, you’ll understand that the two were pretty much common wealth married.) One thing I need to clarify is that you can search ‘points of interest’ with a GPS and it saves the last five items you looked for, needless to say In-N-Out Burger never left my ‘recent searches.’ I decided, after using the GPS to find my regular In-N-Out for almost six months, that I should actually learn the way to the one I frequented when I lived in Sacramento. I got promptly very very lost. It sucked, mostly because I was starving. Being that hungry, I had no time to experiment with “knowledge” on where “things” “are.” I was like “WHY AM I IN A COW FIELD! I NEED TO BE IN THE SHOPPING CENTER WITH IN-N-OUT!”

(All these, so close to my house!)

I’ve named my GPS “GPS lady.” Sometimes, when she starts yelling at me or sending me down streets that don’t exist, I call her “the bitch.” Our relationship is hot and cold sometimes. The only problem that GPS Lady had with In-N-Out Burger was its annunciation. GPS Lady does special things like, when you arrive at a Popeye’s she goes “You are now arriving at Popeye’s Fried Chicken and Biscuits” But for In-N-Out she goes “You are now arriving at In North Out Burjer” (that is not a typo, she says the word “burger” with a ‘J’ sound instead of a ‘G’ sound.) The reason she says that, is because the GPS is programmed to say certain things in certain ways.  She changes the letters N, S, E and W to their respective cardinal directions. She changes “St.” to “street.” So, let’s say you are going down St. Charles Street she goes “Take a left on Street Charles Street.” I gave mine a British accent, this was because the American accent GPS lady and me were no longer on speaking terms after I took her with me to Seattle. I actually didn’t use it for several months after Seattle, because I was just THAT mad. (Seattle is one of those cities that have streets on top of streets, so the bitch is telling me turn, when there IS NO TURN.)

(The employees that work at In-N-Out, or as I like to call them "Happy Little Robots.")

So, I finally figured out how to get to In-North-Out Burger on my own, and then I think I left Sacramento a week later. In an effort to become less dependent on my GPS and also be able to find an In-N-Out in an emergency situation, say, without my GPS, I learned were the closest one was using Google maps in San Diego.

(This is happiness.)

Good times to eat In-N-Out:

• Celebrating – I did this when I was done taking the GRE. I was like “it’s about that time to eat some celebratory In-N-Out burger.”
• After You Visit a Family Resource Center (a.k.a. FRC a.k.a. the place that gives out FOOD STAMPS) – We did this not once, but twice. There is something so poetic about going to a place where people are given food stamps, where you are doing a report to talk about how hard it is for people to get services (I.E. EAT AND HAVE FOOD) and it’s like “you know, I’m hungry let’s hit up In-N-Out.” And someone might be like “I’m full from the pizza we brought into the food stamp place, that we didn’t share with the hungry people in the lobby but gave to the employees instead and also ate ourselves” and then someone else is all “man, just FORCE IT. Stop BITCHING about how FULL you are.”
• When Your Dad is visiting – I actually took my mom to In-N-Out too, but it was my dad who had his eyes closed while he was eating. The man ate the burger in a rhythm that I had never seen before. I realized he was completely engrossed in the burger when I was talking, didn’t hear him respond and looked up to see his eyes half closed and him rhythmically eating the burger.
• Merging onto the Freeway at 85 mph – This is one of the most legitimate ways to eat In-N-Out. Unless the special sauce is accidentally dripping on your pants while merging onto the freeway, you aren’t doing it right. If your life doesn’t consequently flash before your eyes, you’re not doing it right.

(I meant to take the picture before I took a bite, oh well.)

And now, that brings us to the final leg in the relationship between In-N-Out and GPS lady. I was driving up to Napa from San Diego, and decided I needed to stop and get food. I did a search, and set it down on the passenger seat. Now, I was in the middle of the central valley, so I knew that the nearest one would be maybe 30 plus miles away. It found one, but that one was too close, and it was still 9:30 a.m. (they open at 10) so I set it down to find one further down, and it never woke up again.  February 18, 2011 at approximately 9:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, GPS lady died searching for an In-N-Out Burger and needless to say I got almost immediately lost when I hit the greater Sacramento area. Was my getting lost in Sacramento because I was so dependent on the GPS when I lived there? Yes. Was it a little bit Sacramento’s fault for having five names for their three Freeways that intersect that I, ironically, ended up at my old In-N-Out burger, and that’s when I realized how lost I was? Yes again.  Did I get Sac-Jacked pretty much the split second I got into the Sacramento city limits?  Yes, because it wouldn’t be Sacramento without having the special power to screw me over on a whim.

(Broken ass GPS.)

One final thing is, that while I was going to In-N-Out to eat and get pictures for this blog entry, I got lost and had to use the GPS to find my way. I was on the correct street, but about two miles away. It would appear even my new GPS and the In-N-Out burger in San Diego  are a lot like my old GPS and the In-N-Out in Sacramento: destined to be brought together over my love of In-N-Out and my inability to find my way around, anywhere, at all times.