there was a cow ($500)

and some wheat ($0.63)

and an older man in California whose mother calls him Marquez like she called his father but his buddies call him "Manny" when he makes the trip back to Mexico after six months of fourteen hour days with his brother and his nephews and his two kids

whose hands touched the tomatoes ($2.00/day)

and in a factory in Wornitz

a team of women turns the wheat into buns (€14/hour/each)

a young man named Philip leads the cow in a line to a machine where they never come back ($20/hour)

the cow is laid bare by Phillip's friend Oren ($25/hour)

and the buns leave from a boatyard there to a shipping yard in Philly where hundreds of men move boxes around on boats ($15/hour/each)

and the cow is substantiated by a woman named Mary ($12/hour)

and a trucker named Dale moves the boxes to Texas ($48k/year, minus debts)

and a trucker named Barb brings the tomatoes too ($44k/year, minus debts)

and a hundred hands process these things into plastic packages in a warehouse in Houston ($12/hour/each)

and someone looks over all of this and makes sure it all counts (30k/year, minus debts)

and a trucker named Barb moves all of these things to a store in Austin (44k/year, minus debts)

where a young woman who loved you but you didn't love back takes it into the freezer

and a few days later, fries the meat

cuts the tomatoes into thin slices

lays out the buns above the meat as it fries

and wraps it in paper from who knows where

and hands it to you ($15/hour)

($5.65 number two with no cheese)