The Impossible Whopper: A Review

Living as a vegetarian is a daily challenge here in America. Every day I’m faced with an endless barrage of meat filled stimuli, from the inimitable excess offered by The Baconator, to the subtle classic of a turkey sandwich. Even simple pleasures like a Haribo Gold Bear or a gosh dang Pop tart evade my savoring palette due to the inclusion of gelatin. Life is an endless slalom through an ever-winding path of forbidden flavors. 

This all changed with the announcement of the Impossible Whopper. A new burger served up by the king himself, promising to provide a beefy blast of protein to both meat eaters and vegetarians alike. Impossible Burgers have existed for awhile now, with their primary selling point being a near uncanny resemblance to real beef. But this marked the first time that they were rolled out to such a large audience, especially from a chain that promised to make the sandwich distinctly their own. This wasn’t an Impossible Burger served at Burger King. No, this was the Impossible Whopper. After months of waiting, I finally took the plunge to try it out. 

My car roared down the highway towards the new meatless mecca. My stereo blasted an alt rock track from the 90’s and I hummed along idly, with dreams of the landscapes of delicious bliss I was soon to make a return to. I pulled up to the building with a fire burning inside of my heart. This was meant to be. 

An incredibly pleasant sounding woman greeted me as my car pulled up to the speaker, asking how she could serve me today. I responded with a gasp, my overwhelming emotions getting the best of my vocal cords. 

“I-I’ll have an Impossible Whopper with extra pickles please” 

“With or without cheese?” Her response was quick and practiced, in a way that only years of training could produce. 

“Large with a Diet Coke” What is a burger without its fries?

“With or without cheese?”, she asked again. It was then that I realized my mistake. In my eagerness, I had completely forgotten to actually answer her question, instead plowing through with the script I had laid out in my head while commuting to the holy land. 

“Uh, no cheese” An experience like this should be as pure as possible. 

“Okay, anything else?” Her voice was like a chorus of angels, without a hint of frustration over my inability to properly order. I was in the clear. 

“Nope, that’ll be it.” 

“Please pull around to the second window” My foot moved on its own from the brake to the gas, as though possessed by a spirit of pure ecstasy. In mere minutes my life would begin anew. 

I arrived at the window with a smile on my face. The woman opened it with a jolt, asking me for ten of my hard earned dollars. A small price to pay for perfection. I wrestled my wallet free from the pocket of my khakis, fingers trembling with excitement. A perfectly crisp $20 bill awaited me patiently inside. It looked as though Andrew Jackson was smiling approvingly at the choices I had made. My arm extended out of the window of my 2002 Toyota Corolla and into the frigid January air. The employee deftly whisked the president out of my grasp and effortlessly sorted through her register to give me the proper change. I was clearly dealing with a professional. She handed me back the bills and coins, with my small ocean of Diet Coke following soon after.

Then it came to me. The entire world went dim besides that bag. The employee’s outstretched arm held a satchel of pure delights. I snatched it out of the cold quickly. My burger must remain warm. I politely thanked the wondrous purveyor of fake meat and sped out of the parking lot. Every moment spent on the road was a moment without the Impossible Whopper’s flesh grazing my tongue. The drive home was a blur of headlights and emotions. I parked in a frenzy, rushing into my house with a single purpose in mind. Eat. The. Burger. It was as though the very fabric of the universe was calling to me. 

As you can see, it looked like shit. The Impossible patty rested lopsided on its bottom bun throne. Tomatoes, onions, and lettuce were tossed haphazardly onto the suspiciously small amount of pickles. A healthy dousing of ketchup and mayonnaise was unable to be seen, but could certainly be smelled, their odor overpowering everything else. The tower of french fries loomed ominously over the rest of the meal, a monument to my own deep fried avarice. Every ketchup packet from the bag had been eviscerated, the remains forming a small mound of scarlet sludge. It was time to dig in. 

The first few bites left me in a state of numb shock. Memories of a youth filled to the brim with meat came flooding back into my cranium. This tasted very close to beef. Too close. I slowly walked back downstairs to my garbage can, nestled neatly out of sight beneath my sink. Despite the wrapper certainly stating that this was an Impossible Whopper, I wasn’t convinced. But then again, it sure was tasty. I returned to my desk to finish what I had started. If a cow had to die for this, then so be it. I needed more. 

After a few more bites a profound sense of nausea overcame me. Maybe I was right. This couldn’t simply be plants. My stomach doubled over in knots. Every atom in my body begged me to stop, but I couldn’t. My hands grasped the sandwich again, moving towards my awaiting mouth with mechanical precision. The flavor had shifted. A wave of iron drowned out everything else. 

A new sense of urgency overtook my trembling form. I devoured what remained of the burger in an act of pure passion. The universe had willed me to eat, and so I must. A small scattering of fries remained. 

“I said extra pickles, not ketchup,” I muttered through fatigued lips. I need to sleep. 

———————————————————————————————————————————-

I awoke drenched in a cold sweat. I was laying on a bare mattress, my sheets ripped from their home and left crumpled into a ball on my desk chair. My room was illuminated by a dull pink glow from my novelty flamingo lamp. I stared blankly at the ceiling fan as it slowly spun above me. 

“How did I get here?” The last thing I remembered was leaving work. 

“Whatcha planning on doing for dinner?”, my coworker had asked casually. 

“I dunno, I’m thinking about trying that new Impossible Whopper from Burger King”

My entire body stiffened. I could feel a cold, calculated gaze beaming into my very soul. My gaze slowly drifted from the ceiling towards the foot of my bed. It was then that I saw him. 

The King himself floated ominously in my room, his dead eyes pointed directly at my shivering form. His entire body shimmered in a misty apparition, trapped between our world and the horrific land he called home. A low hum slowly faded into existence, joined by the faint scraping of cold iron being dragged on concrete. I stared back into the eyes of the beast, too afraid to look away. A red glow throbbed from his pupils. 

 

“Yaw Ruoy Ti Evah”

 

The chant came ominously from his direction, despite his lips remaining frozen in a plastic smile. It began slowly, but picked up speed quickly. My breathing had stopped. The hum and the scraping grew louder, as did the chanting. 

 

“Yaw Ruoy Ti Evah. Yaw Ruoy Ti Evah. Yaw Ruoy Ti Evah.” 

 

Blood poured out from The King’s eyes, oozing down his statuesque visage. Light blasted through the deluge bathing my entire room a ghastly crimson. The noise became too much to take. I screamed in sheer terror, but heard no new sound. The cacophony of the humming, scraping and now-frenzied chanting drowned it out. 

The King began to move towards me, his horrible face trained directly onto mine. Despite my brain furiously screaming at my muscles to get the hell out of there, they simply wouldn’t move. I was paralyzed. 

The King was upon me now. Somehow the chanting had grown even louder than before, cutting through all else. His face hovered mere inches from mine, blood dripping from his cheeks on to my heaving chest. My vision blurred to darkness, and then there was nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, I give the Impossible Whopper a 7.5 out of 10, would eat again.