Burger King has a very personal and profound place in my heart, let me tell you why.
When I was a young lad, Burger King would always be the place that my parents would take me after a hard week of kindergarten. It was a place where I could get lost in the smell of that classic Burger King patty smell, it's ginormous aquatic center, and most importantly, the best Play Place known to kidkind. If you grew up in Fort Fun, I'm mainly talking about a very specific Burger King that existed along Stellhorn & Maplecrest road; It was in front of what used to be a Scott's. Anyways every time I sprinted in, I would do 3 very important things:Never look to my left:
That's where the play place was, and I knew I would never get to enjoy my meal if I became distracted by the best place in the world, more on that later.
Sit at the center of the aquarium:
This was like my Sea World. There was this ginormous fish tank that sat in the middle of the restaurant that basically split the Restaraunt in half because of how long it was. It sat in front of the tall chairs, and although I had to struggle to climb up and down them, it was worth it because I thought the fishes looked amazing, and it kept me distracted from all the enjoyment that kids were having at heaven on earth just behind me.
Clean myself up:
After my meal I made sure to be prepared for what would be my reason for existence. After spending a few minutes in the restroom I would finally walk out of those doors and straight into the Taj Mahal. My mom always reminding me, before I walked in, that I only had 30 minutes. I would make the most of it.
The Play Place itself went through a few iterations, my personal favorite was the 1st one. It was.basically a huge ball pit, or ball ocean, as I would imagine it. So massive and deep, that you had to climb up to what felt like 3 stories and then enter the ball pit through a diving board or swinging on a rope. I always chose the rope, I felt like Tarzan. I would try to get so deep in the ball pit that my mom would sometimes have to have others get me out, usually by some other kids.
Burger King would later start to diminish the ball pit and then when controversial news broke of the AIDs needles being found in them, they finally just removed it. At least, that's what my mom told me. So they had to reconstruct the entire Play Place, and it turned out to be a good trade off.
With the ball pit removed, they built a huge maze of tunnels that were stacked about 3 stories high around the perimeter of the room and then end with about 3-4 different slides, it was awesome. I remember first visiting it and I didn't even know where to start, my first instinct was to go up the slides, but the place was poppin', so I went through the natural entrance (the fall-safe steps). I made sure to go through every single tunnel and discover what mysteries it had. It took me a couple of weeks, and then I suddenly started turning it into a race. All the strength and power that my Whopper Jr gave me, went out on the tunnels and I would climb them over and over again as fast as I possibly could until I was drenched in sweat.
After a long day of adventure and climbing, I would sit at the very top and center of the Play Place, which I called the observatory, and feel like I was on top of the world. It was at that moment I felt like a king. I tipped my cardboard crown to front of my head and sat back and would doze off for a bit. Until my mom would inevitably scream her lungs out for me.
But other than all of that, Burger Kings have a been a pretty big staple in my family. It's where we would celebrate many of our birthdays (different locale) and it'd be a huge gathering, cuz we're Mexican. I would have so many experiences there like having a crush on a girl, getting in fights and turf wars with other kids, and wondering why there ever existed an old iron wood burner at the Stellhorn location (it seriously didn't resonate with the whole aquatic theme they had going on, but I always felt warm by it in the winter, even though they never used it.)
Nowadays I pass by or go into a Burger King and I always get this rush of feelings and emotion, as well as nostalgia. Burger King used to be a place that always made me happy and clear my mind. But now I'm not sure where that place is anymore. It's left a huge hole in my heart, and this is what has ultimately brought out my more outdoorsy side to me. Going to places like Redsands, Hueco Tanks, or other State Parks reminds me of the feeling like I'm crawling around plastic tunnels, trudging through ball pits (just don't), and sliding around a winding tunnel of ecstasy. I guess Burger King taught me to be curious, but maybe I'm overthinking it. read more