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Sandwich Monday: The CBO

Cheddar*, Bacon, Onion.
NPR
Cheddar*, Bacon, Onion.

Joining the McDLT in the great history of abbreviated McDonald's sandwiches is the CBO burger. "CBO" stands for Cheddar, Bacon, Onion, but as you can see below, they had to put an asterisk after "cheddar."

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NPR

Peter: The asterisk should lead you to the bottom of the box where there's a little message saying TOO LATE, YOU'RE DEAD.

Mike: The asterisk really changes the menu. Not sure I want a Filet-O-F*** or a Sham**ck Shake.

Eva is skeptical.
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Eva is skeptical.

Ian: McDonald's chose to use the abbreviation "CBO" because saying the whole words took away valuable chewing time.

Leah: This was named after an actual position in the McDonald's corporate hierarchy — Chief Bacon Officer.

Sandwich, or the piece of diseased lung my health teacher showed me to make me stop smoking?
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Sandwich, or the piece of diseased lung my health teacher showed me to make me stop smoking?

Eva: Pretty soon you're going to have to give your seat up on the subway to someone suffering from CBO. Are you pregnant? No I just have CBO.

Ian: It's easy to text someone about this sandwich. CBO LOL (lots of lipids) OMG (Ow, my gut).

Peter: It's a short step from simple punctuation to emoticons. Soon, all the items on the menu will have a :( after them.

Robert: Actually, McDonald's test kitchen is all ready to roll out the "Fat Man" emoticon. :-( -O=:

Robert is scared.
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Robert is scared.

Peter: Does it mean anything that it's the same abbreviation as Congressional Budget Office? Is it that they both bring you bad news about the future? One says, 'We'll run out of money,' and the other says, 'You'll be fat soon.'

Ian: "CBO" is also what you say for when someone smells so bad you can see it.

Leah: If they actually abbreviated all the ingredients it would be the JDJEITKSFLNSVNLSKFJWEIIIOOHILIXXSNBXNWOQOPEIJSKJLSSSjLK.

[The verdict: great.*]

*Not so great.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Ian Chillag
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