Ah yes, the amazing excess of America

I give you, ladies and gentlemen, the Heart Attack Grill in Tempe Arizona. I worry about a restaurant that thinks this is okay. I'm so not a prude and have a terrific sense of humour but this goes beyond good taste (Hee. See what I did there?).

I can tell where someone thought this could be a great idea. The anti-granola crunching feminist, the anti-veggie burger eater, anti-Zone/South Beach/Atkins diet craze. I get it. It's like an SNL skit. But in a country where they make custom toilets because people's asses have gotten too large for standard ones, it seems like a slap in the face to those who are trying to be healthy, doesn't it?

This place brags wait staff dressed like doctors and nurses and will even push you out to your car in a wheelchair if you find you've eaten too much. They serve a Quadruple Bypass Burger and Flatliner Fries. Don't forget your Diet Coke. Ew. I hope they also have portable defibrillators and 911 on speed dial.

That said, a teeny weeny part of me wants to swing by there the next time I'm in Tempe. Maybe it's because the whole idea of the place needs to be seen to believed. But I think more of it is to actually try a Bypass Burger. I admit it. Because as much as I like to complain about the Sodom and Gomorrah-ness of our neighbours to the south, I love their moxie. Their sense of entitlement. Their appalling sense of I-can-do-whatever-the-hell-I-want-because-I-live-in the-best-gd-country-in-the-whole-damn-world nonsense. What other country on this planet could come up with something so ludicrous, so deliciously insulting? To health care professionals, vegetarians, health nuts, women, thin people, the obese, the wonky US health care system... the list goes on.

So basically I need to keep quiet. I like to complain but from the safe distance that is Canada. Close enough to see (and love) this stuff but far enough away to be grossed out by, and look down my nose at it. So. I wonder if the Heart Attack Grill does takeout?

kxx