Kevin stood in his kitchen, phone held aloft like a sacred relic, muttering, “This time, it’s gonna blow up.” His eyes locked on the TikTok trend du jour: the Burger King Dance, where users mimicked flipping a Whopper while lip-syncing to a jingle only exists in the void. Kevin, however, had a twist. He’d replace the burger with a salad—”elevate the chaos,” he called it.
He tossed lettuce into a blender, which he’d repurposed as a “salad spinner.” The machine whirred, emitting a noise akin to a dying lawnmower. “Okay, Kevin, you’re nailing it,” he said, sweat dripping into his eyebrow. Then came the dance: a series of jerky hip sways and a failed attempt at a “burger flip” that resulted in him toppling over a stack of cereal boxes.
His phone screen blinked with a 15-second clip. He captioned it: “When you try to be the next big thing but your salad has more personality than your life.” The video accrued 37 likes. His best friend, Lisa, texted: “Is this a prank or a cry for help?” Kevin replied with a GIF of a crying emoji eating a salad.
The next day, he tried again, this time with a “spin-off”: the Salad King Dance. He swapped the blender for a whisk and added a side of existential dread. The video? A 60-second montage of him yelling, “I AM THE SALAD!” while trying to balance a fork on his nose. It got 2 likes. Kevin stared at the screen, then tossed the fork into a pile of expired snacks. “Maybe,” he said, “I’ll just be the guy who invented the sad salad.” The end.
