We have our favorite local spot to get a good, fresh bacon cheeseburger here and they happen to make fantastic ranch sauce to boot. My husband and I  love to each get a bacon cheeseburger and share an order of the chili cheese fries with cheese and onions (which is also a ranch essential item, also known as an REI). 

There is always the same woman that works at this restaurant taking orders every single time I go, no matter what time of day. At first, she was a very cold woman (picture that episode from Seinfeld, “The Soup Nazi”, and that is exactly what she is like)--and over the course of being a regular the last year and a half, I thought we had really gotten somewhere in our “friendship”. It felt like an accomplishment that I have worked up to the point where she greets me with a smile and wishes me a crisp “good day”........and quickly slams the drive-thru window in my face. We’ve come a long way, but she let me down this last time when she forgot the most essential item in this last order.

You’ve got to get the bacon on your burger at this place because it is cooked to absolute perfection here! Crisp, but not too crisp--thick cut and curly in all the right places. I’d give up the most perfect bacon on my burger to just be able to have ranch dripping on every bite. Panic struck when I emptied the contents of the bag to not see those essential little tubs of joy. You know that move when you keep looking in the bag time and time again, trying to will your eyes to find it at the bottom of the sad brown bag, but you know it’s not there. 

My eyes dilate and I go into brainstorming mode! What do I have that’s a reasonable backup?! Nothing!!!!! I try not to panic, but I’ve got to have something saucy because a dry bacon cheeseburger is the worst! Any normal person would have a bottle of ranch dressing in the fridge, but there is just nothing that compares to the fresh stuff that they make at the restaurants so I never even bother, which I’m cursing myself about in this moment! The Idaho girl in me gets to thinking about coming up with a fry sauce type of vibe to mix and put on top, which is a mixture of mayo and ketchup, with sometimes some other secret ingredients like pickle juice. I knew in the fridge I had the world’s best ketchup with the best flavor--Trader Joe’s organic ketchup, as well as some Japanese “Kewpie” mayo I had been waiting for the right occasion to try. 

I drizzled a little of both on top and can happily report that while it wasn’t the 5-star Burger Town USA ranch sauce, it was delicious and worked like a charm to give me the essential saucy vibe I am accustomed to. And as a bonus, now I know that the hype behind Kewpie mayo is real and I can’t wait to try it on other things. 

This sure does seem like a story a take-out loving Millennial would tell, right? :) Well, you’d be right! Can anyone relate to this at all or do I just sound like a ranch-loving weirdo? Okay, maybe don’t feel the need to answer the second part--I know the answer to that.

I can’t be the only sauce fanatic out there. I believe almost anything out there is almost always better with a good sauce. Think of a Chick-Fil-A sandwich--without that Chick-Fil-A sauce, what would it be? Not even in the same ballpark! If you have that sandwich plain, I’d give it a 6.5/10, but loaded up with plenty of sauce, it’s a 10 out of 10, baby! Same goes for tacos, chicken wings and burgers.

Are you a sauce fanatic too? Or do you feel the same way about any particular item that is essential to you for certain meals? Do you find they forget simple things like your sides of sauces in your takeout meals? I’m trying to really see here if the universe does have a grudge against my husband and I or if other people can relate to this. Please share your thoughts in the comments below.