Dr. Bart Everton M.D.

By Alejandro Menendez

Dr. Bart Everton, M.D., was not especially good at anything. In fact, if anything, he was slightly below average. His placing in the 46th percentile on his Scholastic Aptitude Test in the 11th grade had created a disdain for statistics and numbers that lasted him the rest of his life and did not necessarily assist him in medical school or medical practice.

Dr. Bart Everton, M.D., got in around the same time every day to work in his beat-up red Camaro, and he drank the same cup of coffee out of a cup that said, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away, so don't eat apples,” and he saw the same few patients and handled them with ease. Then he went home to his same old wife, a slightly below average-looking woman whom he detested but justified his marriage to, as he knew subconsciously he couldn’t do much better.

Dr. Bart Everton M.D. had had enough. It was sometime in between his monotonous drive to work, where he would yell profanities at the driver (this he was not below average at), and the time that he had finished checking out the last patient that he remembered his mother’s recipe for hamburgers and subsequently grew depressed at the monotonous and disparagingly average life he had decided to live. As he stared at the posters in his office that contained food pyramids and other drudgerous statements that his patients would glance at, he threw the coffee from his cup at them and walked out of the office.

Ms. Tina, the high school receptionist, asked, “Where are you going, doctor?”

“I’m leaving,” replied Dr. Bart Everton, M.D.

“Why,” she said.

He was already out the door.

…

It took some time, but Dr. Bart Everton had eventually perfected his late mother’s hamburger, which was something he thought was traditionally American, but he realized after searching through a few cookbooks that the Americans had taken it from the Germans. (The Americans had taken a lot from everyone.) And after taking out the last $14,562 that was left to him by his mother and father, he opened up a simple food truck in a green patch of grass in one of the lesser neighborhoods in Witcham County, Missouri. He felt fulfilled. He felt rebellious. He felt for the first time that the 46th percentile he belonged to did not define him; this being because he had thrown his scores out the window.

On the first day of “Everton’s Excellent Burgers Food Truck’s” debut in Witcham County, Missouri, many of the other food truck owners looked upon the truck with disdain. They were all of an older crew who had the system of customers worked out to where they all made their fair share and were decently well-off. Dr. Bart Everton, M.D., did not care about this, because his burgers were different.

You see, when one goes to medical school at a prestigious institution such as Southern Missouri State (as Dr. Bart Everton, M.D.,), one learns certain things. In his senior thesis, Everton had discovered a rather interesting combination of chemicals that caused the six senses of each individual to be reduced to almost nothing.

Nothing.

One could not see too well, nor hear too well, nor touch too well, nor smell too well, and most importantly one could not taste too well. Dr. Bart Everton, M.D., would use this to his advantage.

…

The first customer was a short, brown, curly-haired young man who realized Everton’s stand was the only one with cheap enough prices for his $8.50. After an awkward exchange the customer bit into the burger and told Dr. Bart Everton, M.D., “That may be the most average burger I’ve ever tasted.”

“I know,” Everton replied.

For the first time in months, he smiled.

However, the day after, the boy returned, this time with a few bruises on his head. He ordered another burger.

Soon enough, the town of Witcham County, Missouri, was invaded by Dr. Bart Everton’s average burgers. The effects were disgraceful, to say the least. People were run over by buses for lack of sight, burned themselves in the kitchen for lack of touch, and worst of all, kept eating Dr. Bart Everton’s burgers for lack of taste. 

One lucky man who wrote for the Witcham Daily News was able to escape these burgers for his superior observance and lack of participation in general public events. He wrote a headline on the case. The headline said this: