By Katherine Kozlik.
No one had ever seen twenty-somethings plan so horribly.
A RyanAir sale meant madness. Buying flights to, well, anywhere as quickly as possible before all the cheap fairs were gone was deemed a necessity by my friends and myself, and round trip tickets from Cork to London were selling fast for under €20.
“Got them!” I closed my laptop lid. “London, here we come!”
Zoe desperately tried to connect her computer to the personal hotspot on Ben’s cellphone. “I can’t get it…Why doesn’t the WiFi work anywhere in this building!? Nothing’s working. Will you just buy our tickets together?”
A cool, calm, and collected Ben clicked around on his screen and replied, “Zoe, I got it. We’re going to London!”
…
After playing hangman with Ben for an hour, we were welcomed by the glow of London against the navy night sky outside our small, cramped, RyanAir window. After exiting the aircraft and realizing that our hostel was over an hour away from London Luton Airport, we piled into an old-fashioned taxi cab and ran up a £200 fare. Begrudgingly, we split it three ways.
After spotting a T.G.I. Friday’s and a Pizza Hut, we were all thinking of fast food back in the States that we hadn’t had in about two months and when arriving at our hostel near Hyde Park, junk food was on the brain. It was 11:40pm and nothing seemed to be open. We searched iMaps for something, anything to provide sustenance as our bellies grumbled. A Burger King a block away was the only business open, and it was closing at midnight. We knew what we had to do.
Dropping our bags not-so-silently in our room filled with our fellow sleeping internationals, we made a break for the Burger King. Upon our late arrival, there were only a few pre-prepared sandwiches left on the warming rack, as expected.
“Can I have a chicken sandwich please?” I asked the older man behind the counter.
“No chicken sandwiches left. Junior Whopper and a hamburger.” He stared through me.
“Um, okay, I’ll take the whopper and a fountain drink please.” I paid him and he turned his attention to Zoe.
“Can I have a hamburger, fries and a drink please?” She asked meekly.
“No hamburger left. Only chicken sandwich. No drinks.” We looked at each other, confused.
She paid the man and we both were in a daze as Ben ordered his meal and got exactly what he wanted, a Cheshire Cat grin on his face.
…
Back at the hostel, our tired bodies made our way down to the kitchen to eat. Ben and Zoe discussed what would take place over the next few days while I decided that my greyish burger needed to be heated up.
I headed to the kitchen to find no paper plates and decided to make do with the BK bag as the base for my burger. I stuck it in the microwave, pressed power, and let it cook as I nosed around the kitchen. After about 20 seconds, it smelled like something was burning. I opened the microwave and there it was: my precious Whopper up in flames.
Instead of reacting like a Sims character would to a fire, jumping and screaming and standing and staring, I internally panicked. Trying not to alarm the two other German girls sitting in the dining area, I leaned my head through the doorway.
“Hey Ben? Zoe? Could you come here for a second?” They looked at me and rolled their eyes. I turned back to assess the situation. More smoke. More flames. Burger on fire.
Twenty seconds passed and they still hadn’t come.
The shrillness of panic echoed in my voice now: “Guys, please come in the kitchen! Now!”
Ben and Zoe were in the doorway, laughing and yelling, “Kat, what did you do!?”
“I don’t know what to do!” I screeched. Okay, the Sims behavior was definitely kicking in.
Zoe tried to get water from a broken sink and Ben stuck his hand into the flaming microwave. Once the sink turned on, Ben had the fiery burger in his hand, ready to chuck it into the water.
“No, not my burger!” I yelled desperately, outstretching my arm.
Ben and Zoe simultaneously snapped their heads in my direction. “Are you serious!?”
…
We returned to the dining area smelling like smoke and looking disheveled, me with a lone hamburger patty in tow. The German girls silently watched us act as if nothing happened in shock.
I went to sleep that night with singed beef in my belly.
The next morning, we realized that everything that happened in the kitchen was broadcasted through a security camera on a large TV screen in the hostel’s lobby. If anyone noticed, they never said anything.
THE SOJOURNAL 