It’s been a strange week.

At work, I’ve been away from my nice, new office and found myself working on a side project in a closet-sized cubicle at the nearby Air Force base. I had use of a computer, of course, to do my work, but the computer isn’t connected to the Internet. For all practical purposes, I could have been living in Amish country this week. That’s how out of touch I’ve been with modern technology.

An additional side effect of being on base all week is having to make due with limited food options for lunch. Normally, I would either bring my lunch with me or go to the nearby Subway for a quick bite.

At the base, I do not have easy access to a refrigerator. I could bring my lunch with me anyway, but I’d prefer not to eat spoiled food. So, that means I need to get in my car and drive to a nearby eating establishment on base. The closest, and only convenient, eating option?

Burger King.

Now, I do not have any problems with Burger King. If I wasn’t trying to eat healthy, I would gladly go to Burger King and enjoy a Whopper. However, since I am trying to eat healthy, a Whopper is about as suitable an eating option to me as a bottle of Jack Daniels is a suitable drinking option to a recovering alcoholic.

“But that’s okay,” I thought to myself. “Surely Burger King has a grilled chicken sandwich of some kind. Every fast-food chain offers a grilled chicken sandwich.”

And yes, Burger King did in fact offer a grilled chicken sandwich on its menu — the “Tendergrill Chicken Sandwich.”

“I will have one Tendergrill chicken sandwich and a medium water,” I asked the nice Burger King employee.

“Sorry,” she informed me. “We are out of our Tendergrill chicken patties.” *

Taken aback, I try to rebound and glance over to Burger King’s salad options.

They did not have any salads on the menu.

“I realize your name is BURGER KING, but how is it that you do not offer a single item of food that is even remotely healthy for you?”

“We have a fish sandwich,” the nice employee assures me.

“Is it fried or grilled,” I asked.

“Fried, but it doesn’t have mayo or cheese on it,” she responds.

“What kind of sauce comes on it,” I asked curiously.

“Tartar sauce,” she replies.

I was pretty sure I was on candid camera at this point, so I begrudgingly ordered a fish sandwich (with super-healthy tartar sauce instead of mayo!) and made my way back to my closet-sized cubicle.

That was on Monday.

On Tuesday, I again drove to Burger King. Like I said earlier, I didn’t have many options. Besides, I was SURE they would have their grilled chicken sandwich that day.

Thankfully, for my sanity, they did.

On Wednesday, at lunch time I found myself feeling gravely ill. I’m pretty sure it was due to having eaten at Burger King for two straight days, so I left work early to go home and take a nap. No lunch for me that day.

Today, Thursday, I finished my work at the base at around noon.

“Hooray! I can leave the base and eat somewhere normal.”

So that’s what I did. A co-worker was with me, so I let him choose where we would eat for lunch.

“Burger King,” he suggested.

“I can and will kill you if you’re being serious,” I assured him.

His second suggestion was a Greek restaurant I had never before been to. In fact, I’m hard pressed remembering EVER eating at a Greek restaurant. How exactly was Greek food different than regular food?

I didn’t know what to expect. I was clueless. And for the first and only time in my entire life, I regretted having never seen the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” since it surely would have given me some insight.

Still, curiosity got the better of me and I agreed to his selection. Even now, I’m not sure how Greek food is different than regular food. It looked like any other restaurant menu. Salads, sandwiches, hamburgers…the only noticeable difference I saw was their love of feta cheese.

I guess this means, if I ever want to start a new eating trend, I could put feta cheese on a taco and invent “The Greek Taco.”

What did I order? Well, to the few who read my last blog post, my selection will not shock you. I ordered a chicken salad sandwich.

I tried ordering something different. I did. But whenever I go to a restaurant (which isn’t often) and find “chicken salad sandwich” on a menu (few restaurants offer them) I feel compelled to order it to see if it’s as good as the chicken salad sandwiches at my college’s cafeteria.

It never is.

Cracker Barrel’s chicken salad sandwich comes closest, but it’s so messy I need an adult bib to attempt eating it. Of course, that never stops me from ordering it whenever I find myself at Cracker Barrel. I order it anyway. Sans the adult bib.

How was the Greek version of my beloved chicken sandwich? Well, not good. It tasted like…nothing. Nothing. It had no taste. It was tasteless. TASTELESS. For a moment, I thought the taste buds on my tongue had been destroyed somehow by Burger King. But then I added a little salt and pepper to the sandwich. I could taste the salt and pepper. I just couldn’t taste anything else.

So, basically, I paid $7.95 for something that tastes like air. Since air is free, the frugal part of my brain died a little due to this revelation.

What will tomorrow have in store for me during lunch time? I’m breathless in anticipation.

* Burger King being out of grilled chicken patties reminded me of an encounter I had with the food chain during high school. It was spring break during my senior year. Me and a classmate were on our way to Tennessee to spend the week with the Tennessee Temple college baseball team. We would have our own dorm room and get to practice with the team and watch their games all week. (They were recruiting us, you see.)

Anyway, on our way to Tennessee we stopped at a Burger King for some lunch. If memory serves, I ordered a Whopper. The employee then said the most inexplicable thing my young brain could have imagined at the time:

“Sorry, but our ‘hamburger guy’ hasn’t come in today yet. We can’t serve any hamburgers.”

This was at 12:30 on a Monday afternoon, by the way.

“What do you mean you can’t serve hamburgers,” I asked. “You are BURGER KING,” I added, stating the obvious.

Ironically, THAT day I had to settle for a chicken sandwich from Burger King. Funny how that works.