Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world's only daily column that has proof for the old adage that you don't know what you got ‘til it's gone, as Joni Mitchell sang.

In this case, we're talking Big Macs, which are no longer available in Iceland, as of Oct. 31.

MILLIONS OF SUMMIT UP READERS: “Noooooooo! We've been planning to visit Iceland and were looking forward to munching on quarter-pounders and McNuggets after soaking in that Blue Lagoon hot spring thingy. What happened?

SUMMIT UP: Well, it seems that the world financial crisis hit Iceland especially hard, and the guy who owned the three McDonald's franchises in the country just couldn't make it work financially. That, plus McDonald's said the high cost of importing food into Iceland was another factor.

MSUR: What? don't they have cows, chickens and potatoes in Iceland? What else do you need? Pretty much everything on the menu is meat, potatoes or dairy/

SU: Whatever, the point is, that Reuters reported that there was huge run on Big Macs in the last few weeks before the eateries closed. Seems that the outlets could barely keep up with demand, selling up to 10,000 burgers per day — not bad for a country that only has about 300,000 people.

Yeah, you take it for granted when it's there, but look out when you can't get it anymore. Imagine trying to feed that craving for smooshy burgers and gooey shakes and you're stuck way out there in the middle of the North Atlantic. Not good.

We can see it now: Icelanders desperate for a burger recreate old Viking vessels and paddle to New York, all just to get a fix of that Lovin' It goodness. Maybe they'll have to establish some clinics where people can go to get treated for withdrawal symptoms. They'll have to eat McDonald's substitutes to wean themselves away ...

We're not here to make any judgments about this. We can take McDonalds, or we can leave it. Sure, it's nice to know it's there, sort of a comforting bit of Americana, if you will. But we wouldn't really miss it if it wasn't.

Then we got curious and wanted to know what other countries do NOT have the Golden Arches. There are several lists out there, and though we can't vouch for their accuracy, most — but not all — of those countries are fairly remote and third-world-ish. Here's just a few of them:

Djibouti, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Holy See, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia ... No Big Macs for the Pope, eh? But he doesn't have to go too far, since there are McDonalds in Rome, all around the Vatican. All in all, it's a pretty cool list of countries. We know some people who know some people who have been to four on the list and we're told that they're all pretty cool places.

So to the people of Iceland, our condolences, but life as you know it will go on. If there are any Icelanders living here in Summit County, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic: No McDonalds, good or bad?

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It's Friday the 13th, and we're not superstitious, but we would like to point out that it's the anniversary of the beatification of this country's first saint, Mother Frances Cabrini, back in 1938.So if you're headed to Denver, pull of at the shrine dedicated to Mother Cabrini and do your religious thing — it can't hurt.

We also see that it's the anniversary of the first shipment of canned pineapple arriving from Hawaii.

Now why would anyone keep track of that? Was someone sitting around, thinking, “Wow, the first canned pineapples. This is a momentous day. I better write this down and send it in to the proper authorities, whomever it might be that tracks these kinds of things (the pineapple foundation? The canned goods institute?).

And as always, there are military events to commemorate on this day. You can pretty much count on the fact that, no matter what day it is, there was always some obscure battle that happened on the same day at some point in human history. Kinda tells you something about our species, doesn't it.

We out, heading for the Golden Arches ... not!