Folowing the parade to the elephant's graveyard.........
I had an appointment in the nearby metropolis of Peoria this afternoon. As is my usual habit, I stopped at Barnes and Noble on the way home. To my huge joy and surprise, the 6th installment of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, "Song of Susannah", is on the shelves. (I finished book 5, "Wolves of the Calla" not 36 hrs ago..........and immediately launched into book 4 of the Harry Potter series, "Goblet of Fire"). It shouldn't come as any surprise that I bought "Song", and on the way to the check out passed a "three for one" deal of B&N classics from which I selected Voltaire's "Candide", Kafka's "The Metamorphosis and Other Stories" and Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw, The Aspern Papers, and Two Stories".............my personal hell will be a penniless eternity outside a Barnes and Noble, piteously begging spare change from semi-literate yuppie assholes whose only real attraction to the place is the magazine selection and the foo-foo coffee concoctions.
Lately I've been craving something, food-wise, and up until tonight I really couldn't put my finger on it. Barnes and Noble sits next door to one of those "all you can eat" buffets, and as I drove past it I had visions of vast mounds of mashed potatoes, covered with that brown, hundred mile an hour, gravy-in-a-drum that is served in every restaurant in the known universe. Lately I've been on a sort of "hot-wings and beer" diet, broken by the odd meal of soup and crackers and the occasional bloody slab of well marbled cow muscle (sizeable enough that it has to be cooked in a state no smaller than Massachusetts).
To my credit, i started with a salad. I do like rabbit food, and, aside from the sensible "voice-of-your-mother" wealth of nutrients it is packed with, it can be eaten in hundred acre salad farm quantities while depositing in your body no more potential energy than it takes to wipe your ass. Thus, my salad served the same prior restraint on the over-indulgence I was about to commit as not going to a bar before 9:45 or 10:00 pm.
As I sat, chewing my cud, I had time to observe my fellow diners. I noticed two things. First, Hometown Buffet must have a representative waiting on the dock to greet every ship from the Phillipine archipelago,insofar as the place was literally crawling with cutie-pie asian mini-screamers. I have fond memories of my time in the orient and the professional ladies I made the acquaintance of there, so this was a good thing. Secondly, however, I noticed how many outlandishly fat people were there. Now, we're not talking, "looks like someone could stand to skip the mid-night snacks" fat people. We're talking "three inches taller and they could be a perfect circle" fat people......"one chair for each cheek" fat people......"take a deep toke on a helium tank and see the Macy's parade from the air" fat people.
I'm sure that you all have, at one time or another, had a mouthful of some sort of liquid,and been in the act of swallowing, when someone said or did something in your presence that struck you as ungodly hilarious.........thus spewing whatever you were drinking through your nostrils. Well, I was contentedly pillaging my salad as one well fed couple waddled past me on the way to the exit. One said to the other; "I dont think the aisles are as wide as they used to be." People, you haven't lived until you have shot a raisin through your nose.
Thus endeth the entry............
Lately I've been craving something, food-wise, and up until tonight I really couldn't put my finger on it. Barnes and Noble sits next door to one of those "all you can eat" buffets, and as I drove past it I had visions of vast mounds of mashed potatoes, covered with that brown, hundred mile an hour, gravy-in-a-drum that is served in every restaurant in the known universe. Lately I've been on a sort of "hot-wings and beer" diet, broken by the odd meal of soup and crackers and the occasional bloody slab of well marbled cow muscle (sizeable enough that it has to be cooked in a state no smaller than Massachusetts).
To my credit, i started with a salad. I do like rabbit food, and, aside from the sensible "voice-of-your-mother" wealth of nutrients it is packed with, it can be eaten in hundred acre salad farm quantities while depositing in your body no more potential energy than it takes to wipe your ass. Thus, my salad served the same prior restraint on the over-indulgence I was about to commit as not going to a bar before 9:45 or 10:00 pm.
As I sat, chewing my cud, I had time to observe my fellow diners. I noticed two things. First, Hometown Buffet must have a representative waiting on the dock to greet every ship from the Phillipine archipelago,insofar as the place was literally crawling with cutie-pie asian mini-screamers. I have fond memories of my time in the orient and the professional ladies I made the acquaintance of there, so this was a good thing. Secondly, however, I noticed how many outlandishly fat people were there. Now, we're not talking, "looks like someone could stand to skip the mid-night snacks" fat people. We're talking "three inches taller and they could be a perfect circle" fat people......"one chair for each cheek" fat people......"take a deep toke on a helium tank and see the Macy's parade from the air" fat people.
I'm sure that you all have, at one time or another, had a mouthful of some sort of liquid,and been in the act of swallowing, when someone said or did something in your presence that struck you as ungodly hilarious.........thus spewing whatever you were drinking through your nostrils. Well, I was contentedly pillaging my salad as one well fed couple waddled past me on the way to the exit. One said to the other; "I dont think the aisles are as wide as they used to be." People, you haven't lived until you have shot a raisin through your nose.
Thus endeth the entry............
posted by captn | 6/14/2004 07:47:00 PM
2 Comments:
Well OBVIOUSLY the blame rests with the aisles getting narrower and not with their backsides getting wider. How could you possibly think otherwise??
Reminds me somewhat of visiting my childhood home and noticing that all of the surroundings were markedly smaller than I remember. However, I can point to 13 years passing and me growing into the 5'6" giant I am now, not over-eating to the point that fat impairs one's perception. "It's someone else's fault"...right. Am I ever thankful to live in one of the slimmest states in the Union. I was talking to my dad and he said that we were neck and neck with California. I replied that Californians are slim because they have overpaid quacks suck their fat out of 'em, Coloradans earn it the hard way. Where was I going with this? Who knows...
-Rob out
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