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Food

Hamburgers Cause Havoc in the National Month of the Hot Dog

Yes, June is National Hot Dog month. Hamburgers had their month (May, oddly enough) but they just won’t stay out of the news of late, from prison breakouts to marriage proposal failures.
Photo via Flickr user thomashawk

Summer and grilling are like pubic hair and puka shells. No matter what dissenters say, they just belong together.

Yes, June is National Hot Dog month. Hamburgers had their month—May, oddly enough—but they just won't stay out of the news of late. Like that omnipresent growth of fungus on your aunt's couch that you're almost certain is sentient (shout out to Blorby!), the burger isn't budging, and it is wreaking havoc in its wake.

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What the hell do I mean? Well, first of all, it turns out that the most intently followed manhunt so far this century—which just came to a violent end this week—was all made possible thanks to our friend, the burger.

Yes, David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York on June 6 by hacking and sawing their way through a steel wall, a brick wall, and then a steam pipe, thanks to tools smuggled in ground beef.

As we all know, the two career criminals emerged from a manhole and kept over a thousand law enforcement officers on the hunt for three weeks. Thanks to ground beef. Is anyone else imagining that escape scene in Raising Arizona with John Goodman encrusted in mud—but instead he's covered in ground beef?

Well, that's not exactly what happened, but it's close. Instead, Joyce Mitchell—the 51-year-old, prison tailor-shop instructor—agreed to hide chisels, a screwdriver bit, and hacksaw blades in frozen hamburger meat. The prisoners used those meat-encased goodies to hack their way out of the prison.

Fuck The Container Store: We're talking about hamburger as a contraband carrying case here. Try that on for size, hot dog—you smug, tubular bastard!

For some criminals, though, the beef itself is the be-all and the end-all.

What might have appeared to be a simple wardrobe malfunction for a shopper in a Bay Area supermarket turns out to be a case of premeditated theft and quite possibly the most low-stakes manhunt in history.

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Local authorities in Hercules, California, were left dumbfounded after responding to a peculiar report of theft. Apparently, two budding hamburglars caught the eye of one particularly vigilant shopper, who alleges the middle-aged thieves were enigmatically pacing the aisles of a local Lucky Supermarket outpost empty-handed.

It didn't take long for our intrepid vigilante to realize that the two men had stuffed a veritable assload of grocery items into their then-bulging pants. Accordingly, the witness sprung into action, as any good food-lover would, and confronted the stealthy duo as they attempted to enter their vehicle and flee. Then, gravity came to the rescue, as one of the suspect's pants fell down, revealing a plethora of packaged hamburgers that would leave even the most hardened safe-cracker with a softie.

Caught with their loot between their risk-taking thighs, the pair shot off like a beef in the night, before the responding officer appeared. While the Hercules Police Department says they will continue to investigate the situation, it doesn't seem certain that local authorities will be able to apprehend our beef-centric Robin Hoods.

When asked about the peculiar nature of the hamburger theft, Reserve Officer and Hercules Police spokeswoman, Connie Van Putten, told local media: "I've been in business for almost 50 years and I can't recall having [suspects] drop their pants."

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Maybe Officer Putten needs to start reading MUNCHIES, because as we've previously reported, cases like this are all too common.

So, yes, thieves are all over the burger of late. It's sort of like After the Sunset, but with a hell of a lot more ground chuck and 75 percent less Pierce Brosnan.

But romance is also in the air for the humble meat-disk and its legions of cow-saders.

In Florida, one Rykihia Moore and her boyfriend Mario Thorton were having a particularly heated fight. Mario accused Rykihia of being unfaithful and Rykihia didn't take kindly to having her honor questioned. So what did she do? What else? She threw a hamburger at him. Who would waste a clean knife when you have a perfectly fine hamburger to saucily toss, right? Mario says the burger hit him in the eye. Rykihia said, "It may have hit him." The police said, "You're going to jail, Rykihia." They charged her with something called "simple battery dating violence."

Damn you, hamburgers! Why does love make us hate?

And finally, even in moments of true romance, burgers are wielding mischief. In our last example of burger-created-havoc, the problem involved a chicken burger, of all things, that nondescript, white-meat, faux burgers some mistakenly think are somehow as worthy as the real thing.

It has been called the "worst proposal ever." Michael Joseph and his girlfriend Ann were driving through a McDonald's when he ordered a Crispy Chicken Deluxe burger. Unbeknownst to Ann, he had the McDonald's employees tuck an engagement ring in the bun. Michael inelegantly managed to make Ann open the burger box so that she would find the ring. But then, Ann burst into tears. "You can't ask me on a bun," she weepingly gasped.

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This burger proposal turned out to be a big bust. Ann was evidently having caviar dreams while Michael was thinking "supersize it."

This burger proposal turned out to be a big bust. Ann was evidently having caviar dreams while Michael was thinking "supersize it." A little more than 1.5 million viewers turned out, with trolls commenting that Ann is a "McBitch" with "no sense of humor."

One problem: the proposal was a fake. Comedians Becky Robinson and Michael Lenochi staged the whole thing. Their confession only has 5,000 views, so we are unlikely to see a rash of burger-bun marriage proposals anytime soon.

In short, the burger appears to be in the throes of a Mercury retrograde. So be careful when you bite into one of those delicious, juicy fiends over the 4th.

Don't even ask us about the 16,000 pounds of hamburger meat that Tyson just recalled, thanks to E. coli. And a hamburger bun manufacturer, H-E-B, recalled its buns this week due to "foreign material" that could be a choking hazard. What type of foreign material, you ask? "A terry cloth glove used for handling hot pans could have broken up in the dough, resulting in a potential choking hazard," explained the FDA.

We really don't make this stuff up, folks. Beef bravely, internet.