I took a number of days off last week because, honestly, in amongst all my excessively intense and rambling posts, I was kind of mentally tired. Yes. From work.
The 4th of July has a couple of posts dedicated to it but here’s another.
We came, we saw, we roasted (Veni, vidi, crispi – or something in that vein).
I am a creature of simple needs at times and the 4th was no exception. As we passed the area where people could park to watch the fireworks and I saw a food booth with two of my favorite words on it. Corn. Dogs.
What’s not to love? You’re either looking at lips-n-assholes in breading or chicken-lips-n-assholes with breading and deep-fried. I put it to the children thusly: Hot dogs are yummy but at best they are mouth and ass parts of some animal with lots of fat and connective tissue thrown in for that extra animal-ey goodness flavor enhancement.
In the Northwest two things you could always find at a corner gas station were corn dogs and jo-jos. I’m told that’s regional, so to save time a jo-jo is not a cheap hooker it is potato wedges battered and fried.
So I do not get my regular allowance of corn-dogs. I purposefully skipped meals in order to look forward to the moment that I could slather one with mustard and wolf it down in steaming mouth-burning gulps.
At the booth we ordered three corn dogs and four lemonades. We get our lemonades and since it was 94 degrees at 9:00pm and muggy as hell we all sucked down a bunch at once. Before the other two dogs were distributed I had already unwrapped mine, licked it once to lay claim on it, and headed towards the mustard.
I could have sworn I heard the gal ask for a large sum of money for our sweetened drinks and fried animal parts but I was swept up in the intense feelings of the moment. Only thing better is a good Reuben.
I was on my fourth and last bite and my brain, being a parallel but asynchronous construct, suddenly processed the damage report for our four sweetened drinks and three animals on a stick.
Thirty-five dollars. $35. 3500¢. Roughly 2000 Rupees. €28.50 (don’t get too caught up in the Euro, it may not last forever, eh?). руб 1153.
It’s not a HUGE sum of money. We could have afforded it. But it was the principle. We could have gone out for a decent meal for that price.
For the rest of the night… long… slow… burn.
Um, HOLY SHIZZNET!!!!
Thirty five dollars for that???
The first thing that popped into my mind was Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2. Yikes…
If we hadn’t already laid lips to pretty nearly everything I would have raised a stink.
I am thinking more like Pesci in Goodfellas.
Oooh, good point
Those are some $pensive dogs all right. They didn’t have prices posted?
No. Our fault. But seriously – who wouldn’t order some and expect a $2.75 corn dog and a $1.50 drink? You figure – oh, ok, $16-$17 and we all get a little something.
No prices posted and never again will I buy from a place that doesn’t.
Don’t forget the “refills” sign hung outside for the lemonade, only to find out that the “refills” cost an additional $3.00.
I didn’t forget. I left that out to test you. (erm)
Smooth, LK
Gotta love a Captive Audience. Reminds me of a story, actually.
Years ago around mid-June one of the local classic rock stations put together / promoted a big arena rock concert with a bunch of the old bands that are still around in one form or another. My organization was one of the sponsors and we had a booth where we would pass out our own promotional goodies and whatnot. That is until one of the vendors notice we were going to hand out free water bottles and mister sprays. They were in the business of selling such items at HEFTY markup and raised a big stink. We were moved backstage where we could hand out our stuff to crew and VIPs. We shared a tent with a bevy of Budweiser bikini babes. It was really hot that day and the gals would drop by every few minutes for a good spritz down. Great concert.
Your imagination extends beyond art into prose pertaining to fantasy.
You had me up until the bikini babe spritzing part.
Captive Audience? I have never once been tried and convicted of kidnapping. Any captivity on the premises of this blog is purely voluntary on the part of the Constant Reader.
???
Sorry I guess I wasn’t clear. The “captive audience” was you and your fambly at a venue with (presumably) limited refreshment options wherein a somewhat predatory capitalist can offer pedestrian fare at premium prices. THAT situation reminded me of the one at the concert where we were run off due to the greedy desires of rampant capitalist exploitationists in similar circumstances.
Greedy freeloaders blew through our free stock in no time flat and we were left with just our own spray / spritzer bottles and a huge tub of melting ice for the rest of the concert. Hope that clears things up.
I was just screwin’ with you, Mitchell. You did have me confused on the audience part but the spritzing I believed. What’s the emoticon I should be using for “envy”?
Ah. Yes, we were captive up to a point. The rest of the family ate beforehand while I saved myself for the corn-dog. We could have brought our own drinks or walked into town to the corner gas station for water but we were already committed by the time we heard the damage report.
Isn’t greed what drives capitalism? I’m all for it until sneakery and deceit enter into the equation.