After paying actual money to wipe down a table and stool dashed with stale Coke and push a small hill of previous diners’ trash out of the way,  I flipped open a box containing the new Signature Collection Classic burger from Mcdonald’s. Enough of the traditional Big Mac or Quarter Pounder, it was time to push the boat out into the silky sea of fine dining.

Within, the objet de curiosité came packaged in a paper sleeve invoking ideas of proudly purchased vinyl records, but the sensation I got was the same as tipping out the bulging contents of an airline sick bag into plastic bread and calling it lunch.

Lifting up the smooth bun uncovered horrors to which The Hauge might be tremblingly concerned by – a small nation’s yearly-use worth of mayonnaise with an atomic droplet of wholegrain mustard smothered the hockey puck patty which was thrown atop see-through slivers of bacon and sweaty, plastic slices of yellow shit called ‘cheese’.

The soggy toilet paper lettuce added nothing to the texture as I bit into it – partly due to the innards of this burger glooping out of the bun at every opportunity. The slightest of pressure caused by a bite or even gentle handling would cause everything to fly out the opposite side at a violent force; by the end of my attempt at eating this baffling mess, the burger looked as if I had just powerbombed it onto a sea mine during a very direct and localised tornado.

And so there I sat, surrounded by a deconstructed Signature Collection Classic, hands looking like I had just fisted Slimer inside a wet dumpster, looking and feeling lost in my own life. The people around me forever blowing their nose or coughing with a mouthful of fries into the face of their companion while they, in turn, were buried eye-deep into Facebook.

It had been a while since I had the misfortune to dine inside a McDonald’s establishment, and no matter how much they try to redesign the eat-in experience (there was a window box with herbs next to me for some reason), I will still always feel like I misplaced my actual mind once I take a grease-stained seat.