Dying for a burger, I called McDonald’s yesterday (yep, home delivery in Egypt!). First time I didn’t get through. Second time I didn’t get through. Third time… At one point I was lucky enough to be answered and then I was hung up on. Undeterred, due to this craving for nasty fast food from the deepest pits of my belly, I called a few more times and finally placed my order. Within half an hour I would have my burger.

An hour later I called up and asked where my burger was.

“On the way” came the answer. Nothing to argue with really because it could mean it’s just come out of the freezer or it’s just downstairs.

As fortune had it, this time it was just downstairs. The delivery man handed me the bag and I could feel the cold fries and minimal warmth coming from the burger.

After speaking to the manager I sent it back, refusing to ‘wait ten minutes’ for a hot one to be delivered after a similar event last year that took 3 hours. I did mention that I was going to call Hardees instead though.

Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang. “Yum, yum” I thought, although now, I was kind of wishing I’d just had some bread and cheese an hour and a half earlier, as not only would I not be hungry, but the guilt of eating a juicy processed burger was beginning to settle somewhere in my stomach.

I opened the door and there stood the McDonald’s man with my original order piping hot AND free.

Apart from my shock, because this isn’t a standard policy in Egypt, I faced a dilemma: with my Hardee’s now on the way, I definitely couldn’t tuck into a MaccyDo’s. I asked the cleaner if she’d like it. She looked at me in a state of bewildered wonder, like she’d just won a competition she hadn’t entered, and said yes. I told her to go take a plate if she wanted and she paused a bit. By now she’d looked into the bag and was beaming. “I think I’ll take it home with me, if that’s ok” she said shyly.

I suddenly realised that this junky burger that I ordered partially because I couldn’t be bothered slicing a bit of cheese was gem enough to her that she couldn’t imagine eating it alone: she was taking the bounty to share with someone.

How gluttonous, wasteful and downright over-priviliged and spoilt I felt when my Hardees arrived.

So much was my guilt, that each mouthful was difficult to chew. I wolfed it down, trying to get rid of the evidence, because as much as I wasn’t enjoying it, after seeing the look on her face, I couldn’t possibly throw any away.