Keep in mind that the research for this article has been done since I was a finicky kid who hated American cheese, and had a mom who was fond of McDonald's. Am I less like Meg Ryan's character in "When Harry Met Sally" as I got older? Uhhhhh.......

So with fast-food hamburgers you get crappy American cheese, or should I say "cheese" since American "cheese" isn't actually cheese. It is processed cheese product.

Anyway, once upon a time I would always just have to get the burgers without cheese. When I got older and wiser I would bring the burgers home and put a slice of cheddar or Swiss or mozzarella (pizza burger!) on it.

But that is too much work -- if there's one thing that ruins everything it's when it becomes something resembling work -- and the fast food restaurants got smarter and started including burgers with other kinds of cheeses. But for burgers like your standard Quarter Pounder, Whopper, or Wendy's triple (YOLO) when it comes with cheese the default cheese is American.

Do they ask you what kind of cheese you want? Of course not. Some managers have even told me the special cheese is "reserved" for the specialty sandwiches, but they will make an exception for me this one time. Oooooh, how fancy and generous your quick-service dining establishment is!

Whatever. So you have to special order the swiss or the cheddar (Mickey D's has the white cheddar which is such an upgrade over American) or the Asiago (Wendy's has this) or if you're lucky you can find a pepper jack somewhere like at BK on occasion.

Okay, so you're at the register. Here's the key, because if you say it differently -- when I started doing this I foolishly was all polite and stuff with "yeah, and instead of the American cheese could I have the Swiss instead please?" -- they will probably charge you extra. The people behind the counter aren't going to set you up with a deal, they just want you out of their face.

The scam is they punch the NO CHEESE button on the register and then hit the ADD CHEESE button. But when they do this the register assumes the customer is asking for EXTRA CHEESE when all the customer is asking for is DIFFERENT CHEESE. TASTY CHEESE. DELICIOUS CHEESE. ACTUAL CHEESE.

Do you want "The Man" to get your 30 or 40 cents for this loophole? I mean, if you order NO CHEESE do you get that 30 cents off the burger? Hellz no. So why should you pay an EXTRA CHEESE surcharge when you are, in fact, NOT getting extra cheese?

Here's how you combat the "no cheese/add cheese" scam at your local fast food restaurant. Use the word "substitute", as in "Double Quarter Pounder, substitute white cheddar cheese" (I will be dead soon). I have actually educated many a McDonald's employee that there is in fact a SUBSTITUTE button on the register which will not charge you.

Generally speaking, if you frequent certain restaurants often enough you should pick up on the lingo, and if you can speak to the employees in their lingo when you order then your odds of getting your order messed up decreases.

Try it today! Upgrade your National Cheeseburger Day with a different cheese!

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