Sure, as breakfast, this monstrosity is horrifying. Criminal, even. Certainly fodder for news reports which surreptitiously film fat asses in the mall only to broadcast them nationally under catchy “America’s Obesity Epidemic” graphics. But as an alternative to joy-banging Mexican black tar heroin on a Sunday afternoon, the Country Breakfast Burrito is totally acceptable. That’s the type of high-grade, uncut relaxation we’re talking about here.

Being a high-adventure gastronome myself, I’ve had a breakfast burrito that was quite similar on many occasions. There was a restaurant in Clearlake that my dirtbag friends and I used to frequent on bass-fishing trips. I can’t recall the name, probably because I was so blitzed out and slit-eyed on fatty pork products whenever I went there, but it was something non-threatening like “Country Kitchen.” I do remember the sign actually proclaimed “Home of the Breakfast Burrito.” Being city slickers and not the type of sportsmen who take a shine to waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to dip our worms, we’d fish all night and wake up around 1pm to get grub. Clearlake, being an economic and cultural backwater famous for meth labs, toothless mutant local color, and large yet mercury-filled fish, had only one or two places to grab a meal, one of which is the still thriving Main Street Café, and the other was the home of the dubious breakfast burrito, which had a few different varieties, each as big as a baby leg and filled with all manner of nitrate-filled cured swine. These delicious belly bombs became known to my friends and I simply as “shit burritos.” So, we’d roll out of our respective cots at my friend’s cabin, rub our eyes and ask, in the following order:

“Brekky?”

“Main Street?”

“Shit burrito?”

For awhile, “shit burrito” would win the battle of the breakfasts, in that it was the most balls-out, over the top option. You know, we’re talking extreme breakfast here. Sadly, as the owners of “Home of the Breakfast Burrito” invested an increasing amount of their profits in the favorite Clearlake pastime of wearing away their septums with crystallized toxic chemicals, the shit burrito became more and more potato-based, and less and less yummy pig, egg, and cheese filled treats. So we stopped going, and so did everyone else, until the place closed, making the shit burrito just another lakeside legend, like the prehistoric catfish that can walk on land.

The point is this: if the choice is between illicit drugs, bankruptcy, and rehab, or cholesterol, don’t be afraid to alter your mood with food. I remember one bad spate of depression where everything I ate for a week had gravy on it: brown gravy, turkey gravy, and that ultimate mood enhancer--sausage gravy. When I worked at the End Up, I saw grown men who were probably dentists during the week in the throes of convulsions on a public sidewalk, fully staining their $300 jeans with GHB puke. Never have I seen someone O.D. on a breakfast burrito. Just learn how to handle your high, or your ass will be filmed for the 10 o’clock news when you sneak off to the Stonestown food court for a few cheese on a sticks and some boba tea.

Not to be outdone, Sonic has recently added a steak, bacon, and egg burrito, though at a mere 580 calories with 34 grams of fat, you’re gonna need two to really get off.