How Wonderful! posted:

First thing's first is I get a job in town, not a good one, but a job. And every week I make a small deposit down at the bank under an assumed name. Just little drips. Maybe a slice of bread. Maybe a piece of cheese. Maybe a couple of handsome wet lettuce leaves. Why? So when anybody asks why I'm hanging around outside the bank on a weekday morning, I can say, why, I'm here to make a deposit and I guess I got here early. Here's my card. Here's my account.

But really?

What I'm doing is watching the trucks. Every morning, like clockwork, the trucks. Taco trucks. Halal trucks. Icecream trucks. Burger trucks. Trucks full of samosas. Trucks heavy with breakfast sandwiches, the kind that come wrapped up in foil and exhaling curls of smoke, the good kind, the kind that make you forget what the rest of the day has balled up in a hard fist behind its back. They pull up, the lunch trucks, with the same heavy-lidded drivers, the same cigarette-smoking men who ferry their hauls into the bank with empty expressions, the same tired old men keeping watch in the back with unloaded pistols at their soft, pale hips... and I'm right there watching. Learning. Remembering.

And all this time I'm going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home, and the dame is there waiting for me, a little less patient every day, asking when? When? And I say hold your horses doll-face. Lunch happens when it happens. And maybe she's had a little to drink and she'll scratch and swap at my face and cry and keep saying when when when until she tires out but every night it ends the same, the two of us coiled together on the kitchen floor, whispering "patience, patience," into each others' hair.

The hardest part besides the waiting is modifying the trailer. We bought a big, handsome trailer, the kind that hitches onto the back of a truck, that the suburban parents and the fat retirees like to buy to take on their vacations or move into their suburban dream homes. A huge, unwieldy thing. But ours is different. A false back on a hinge, a kind of secret door-- large enough to eat lunch in front of. Large enough to hide a truck behind.

Finally, the day comes. It's pizza day down at the bank. Folino's has a truck out front, and I watch the trim young men hop out and head in. The driver ambles off to have a cigarette around the corner. That means it's just me and the squirrely old man with the gun. I'm fine with that. Killing's an ugly business but it's an ugly world. I leap in silently, and take the springy dough out of my pocket, forming a loose, flat disc. I prefer to work with plain bread flour, like I learned in the war. New York boys talk a big game about semolina, the special water in the faucets, but that's not what this is about. I toss the dough in the air a few times, spinning it like a roulette wheel, and then it's over the old man's head, and he's kicking, and then, before long, he's not kicking at all, and he'll never be kicking again. 40 seconds. That gives me plenty of time and at this point it's like I can smell the lunch, can taste it on my tongue. But not yet, not really.

I slip a couple pepperonis in the ignition, an old trick but a good one, and I'm on the road, taking the corners hard and reckless, and before long I'm backing into the trailer. I'm giddy and I feel the dame pull out and onto the highway and I know we're on our way to the picnic spot, and I feel every bump in the road. I can't take it anymore. I start ripping into the burlap sacks jostling all over the back of the truck, I need to know what's for lunch. And then I see it. The scuffed cardboard corners, the sickly yellow packaging. It's a Lunchable. Pepperoni pizza. Snickers. You've seen it and you know it too. My heart sinks and I toss it aside, digging for hot crispy pizza underneath. But my fingers dig into more cardboard. Lunchable, Lunchable, Lunchable. I tear open the next bag and it's Lunchables as far as the eye can see. I can't help it. I start laughing. I start laughing at the tasteless beige crust and the sugary sweet sauce and the cold, starchy cheese and I keep laughing, I laugh when the feds pull us over and I laugh when they drag me into my prison and I'm laughing now, strapped to the electric chair, I'm laughing at the pious faces of the guards and the wardens and the prison chaplains, and I'm laughing and I'm laughing and on my lips I have only the taste of Capri Sun. Pacific Cooler flavor.

How Wonderful! posted:

First thing's first is I get a job in town, not a good one, but a job. And every week I make a small deposit down at the bank under an assumed name. Just little drips. Maybe a slice of bread. Maybe a piece of cheese. Maybe a couple of handsome wet lettuce leaves. Why? So when anybody asks why I'm hanging around outside the bank on a weekday morning, I can say, why, I'm here to make a deposit and I guess I got here early. Here's my card. Here's my account.

But really?

What I'm doing is watching the trucks. Every morning, like clockwork, the trucks. Taco trucks. Halal trucks. Icecream trucks. Burger trucks. Trucks full of samosas. Trucks heavy with breakfast sandwiches, the kind that come wrapped up in foil and exhaling curls of smoke, the good kind, the kind that make you forget what the rest of the day has balled up in a hard fist behind its back. They pull up, the lunch trucks, with the same heavy-lidded drivers, the same cigarette-smoking men who ferry their hauls into the bank with empty expressions, the same tired old men keeping watch in the back with unloaded pistols at their soft, pale hips... and I'm right there watching. Learning. Remembering.

And all this time I'm going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home, and the dame is there waiting for me, a little less patient every day, asking when? When? And I say hold your horses doll-face. Lunch happens when it happens. And maybe she's had a little to drink and she'll scratch and swap at my face and cry and keep saying when when when until she tires out but every night it ends the same, the two of us coiled together on the kitchen floor, whispering "patience, patience," into each others' hair.

The hardest part besides the waiting is modifying the trailer. We bought a big, handsome trailer, the kind that hitches onto the back of a truck, that the suburban parents and the fat retirees like to buy to take on their vacations or move into their suburban dream homes. A huge, unwieldy thing. But ours is different. A false back on a hinge, a kind of secret door-- large enough to eat lunch in front of. Large enough to hide a truck behind.

Finally, the day comes. It's pizza day down at the bank. Folino's has a truck out front, and I watch the trim young men hop out and head in. The driver ambles off to have a cigarette around the corner. That means it's just me and the squirrely old man with the gun. I'm fine with that. Killing's an ugly business but it's an ugly world. I leap in silently, and take the springy dough out of my pocket, forming a loose, flat disc. I prefer to work with plain bread flour, like I learned in the war. New York boys talk a big game about semolina, the special water in the faucets, but that's not what this is about. I toss the dough in the air a few times, spinning it like a roulette wheel, and then it's over the old man's head, and he's kicking, and then, before long, he's not kicking at all, and he'll never be kicking again. 40 seconds. That gives me plenty of time and at this point it's like I can smell the lunch, can taste it on my tongue. But not yet, not really.

I slip a couple pepperonis in the ignition, an old trick but a good one, and I'm on the road, taking the corners hard and reckless, and before long I'm backing into the trailer. I'm giddy and I feel the dame pull out and onto the highway and I know we're on our way to the picnic spot, and I feel every bump in the road. I can't take it anymore. I start ripping into the burlap sacks jostling all over the back of the truck, I need to know what's for lunch. And then I see it. The scuffed cardboard corners, the sickly yellow packaging. It's a Lunchable. Pepperoni pizza. Snickers. You've seen it and you know it too. My heart sinks and I toss it aside, digging for hot crispy pizza underneath. But my fingers dig into more cardboard. Lunchable, Lunchable, Lunchable. I tear open the next bag and it's Lunchables as far as the eye can see. I can't help it. I start laughing. I start laughing at the tasteless beige crust and the sugary sweet sauce and the cold, starchy cheese and I keep laughing, I laugh when the feds pull us over and I laugh when they drag me into my prison and I'm laughing now, strapped to the electric chair, I'm laughing at the pious faces of the guards and the wardens and the prison chaplains, and I'm laughing and I'm laughing and on my lips I have only the taste of Capri Sun. Pacific Cooler flavor.

How Wonderful! posted:

First thing's first is I get a job in town, not a good one, but a job. And every week I make a small deposit down at the bank under an assumed name. Just little drips. Maybe a slice of bread. Maybe a piece of cheese. Maybe a couple of handsome wet lettuce leaves. Why? So when anybody asks why I'm hanging around outside the bank on a weekday morning, I can say, why, I'm here to make a deposit and I guess I got here early. Here's my card. Here's my account.

But really?

What I'm doing is watching the trucks. Every morning, like clockwork, the trucks. Taco trucks. Halal trucks. Icecream trucks. Burger trucks. Trucks full of samosas. Trucks heavy with breakfast sandwiches, the kind that come wrapped up in foil and exhaling curls of smoke, the good kind, the kind that make you forget what the rest of the day has balled up in a hard fist behind its back. They pull up, the lunch trucks, with the same heavy-lidded drivers, the same cigarette-smoking men who ferry their hauls into the bank with empty expressions, the same tired old men keeping watch in the back with unloaded pistols at their soft, pale hips... and I'm right there watching. Learning. Remembering.

And all this time I'm going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home, and the dame is there waiting for me, a little less patient every day, asking when? When? And I say hold your horses doll-face. Lunch happens when it happens. And maybe she's had a little to drink and she'll scratch and swap at my face and cry and keep saying when when when until she tires out but every night it ends the same, the two of us coiled together on the kitchen floor, whispering "patience, patience," into each others' hair.

The hardest part besides the waiting is modifying the trailer. We bought a big, handsome trailer, the kind that hitches onto the back of a truck, that the suburban parents and the fat retirees like to buy to take on their vacations or move into their suburban dream homes. A huge, unwieldy thing. But ours is different. A false back on a hinge, a kind of secret door-- large enough to eat lunch in front of. Large enough to hide a truck behind.

Finally, the day comes. It's pizza day down at the bank. Folino's has a truck out front, and I watch the trim young men hop out and head in. The driver ambles off to have a cigarette around the corner. That means it's just me and the squirrely old man with the gun. I'm fine with that. Killing's an ugly business but it's an ugly world. I leap in silently, and take the springy dough out of my pocket, forming a loose, flat disc. I prefer to work with plain bread flour, like I learned in the war. New York boys talk a big game about semolina, the special water in the faucets, but that's not what this is about. I toss the dough in the air a few times, spinning it like a roulette wheel, and then it's over the old man's head, and he's kicking, and then, before long, he's not kicking at all, and he'll never be kicking again. 40 seconds. That gives me plenty of time and at this point it's like I can smell the lunch, can taste it on my tongue. But not yet, not really.

I slip a couple pepperonis in the ignition, an old trick but a good one, and I'm on the road, taking the corners hard and reckless, and before long I'm backing into the trailer. I'm giddy and I feel the dame pull out and onto the highway and I know we're on our way to the picnic spot, and I feel every bump in the road. I can't take it anymore. I start ripping into the burlap sacks jostling all over the back of the truck, I need to know what's for lunch. And then I see it. The scuffed cardboard corners, the sickly yellow packaging. It's a Lunchable. Pepperoni pizza. Snickers. You've seen it and you know it too. My heart sinks and I toss it aside, digging for hot crispy pizza underneath. But my fingers dig into more cardboard. Lunchable, Lunchable, Lunchable. I tear open the next bag and it's Lunchables as far as the eye can see. I can't help it. I start laughing. I start laughing at the tasteless beige crust and the sugary sweet sauce and the cold, starchy cheese and I keep laughing, I laugh when the feds pull us over and I laugh when they drag me into my prison and I'm laughing now, strapped to the electric chair, I'm laughing at the pious faces of the guards and the wardens and the prison chaplains, and I'm laughing and I'm laughing and on my lips I have only the taste of Capri Sun. Pacific Cooler flavor.

How Wonderful! posted:

First thing's first is I get a job in town, not a good one, but a job. And every week I make a small deposit down at the bank under an assumed name. Just little drips. Maybe a slice of bread. Maybe a piece of cheese. Maybe a couple of handsome wet lettuce leaves. Why? So when anybody asks why I'm hanging around outside the bank on a weekday morning, I can say, why, I'm here to make a deposit and I guess I got here early. Here's my card. Here's my account.

But really?

What I'm doing is watching the trucks. Every morning, like clockwork, the trucks. Taco trucks. Halal trucks. Icecream trucks. Burger trucks. Trucks full of samosas. Trucks heavy with breakfast sandwiches, the kind that come wrapped up in foil and exhaling curls of smoke, the good kind, the kind that make you forget what the rest of the day has balled up in a hard fist behind its back. They pull up, the lunch trucks, with the same heavy-lidded drivers, the same cigarette-smoking men who ferry their hauls into the bank with empty expressions, the same tired old men keeping watch in the back with unloaded pistols at their soft, pale hips... and I'm right there watching. Learning. Remembering.

And all this time I'm going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home, and the dame is there waiting for me, a little less patient every day, asking when? When? And I say hold your horses doll-face. Lunch happens when it happens. And maybe she's had a little to drink and she'll scratch and swap at my face and cry and keep saying when when when until she tires out but every night it ends the same, the two of us coiled together on the kitchen floor, whispering "patience, patience," into each others' hair.

The hardest part besides the waiting is modifying the trailer. We bought a big, handsome trailer, the kind that hitches onto the back of a truck, that the suburban parents and the fat retirees like to buy to take on their vacations or move into their suburban dream homes. A huge, unwieldy thing. But ours is different. A false back on a hinge, a kind of secret door-- large enough to eat lunch in front of. Large enough to hide a truck behind.

Finally, the day comes. It's pizza day down at the bank. Folino's has a truck out front, and I watch the trim young men hop out and head in. The driver ambles off to have a cigarette around the corner. That means it's just me and the squirrely old man with the gun. I'm fine with that. Killing's an ugly business but it's an ugly world. I leap in silently, and take the springy dough out of my pocket, forming a loose, flat disc. I prefer to work with plain bread flour, like I learned in the war. New York boys talk a big game about semolina, the special water in the faucets, but that's not what this is about. I toss the dough in the air a few times, spinning it like a roulette wheel, and then it's over the old man's head, and he's kicking, and then, before long, he's not kicking at all, and he'll never be kicking again. 40 seconds. That gives me plenty of time and at this point it's like I can smell the lunch, can taste it on my tongue. But not yet, not really.

I slip a couple pepperonis in the ignition, an old trick but a good one, and I'm on the road, taking the corners hard and reckless, and before long I'm backing into the trailer. I'm giddy and I feel the dame pull out and onto the highway and I know we're on our way to the picnic spot, and I feel every bump in the road. I can't take it anymore. I start ripping into the burlap sacks jostling all over the back of the truck, I need to know what's for lunch. And then I see it. The scuffed cardboard corners, the sickly yellow packaging. It's a Lunchable. Pepperoni pizza. Snickers. You've seen it and you know it too. My heart sinks and I toss it aside, digging for hot crispy pizza underneath. But my fingers dig into more cardboard. Lunchable, Lunchable, Lunchable. I tear open the next bag and it's Lunchables as far as the eye can see. I can't help it. I start laughing. I start laughing at the tasteless beige crust and the sugary sweet sauce and the cold, starchy cheese and I keep laughing, I laugh when the feds pull us over and I laugh when they drag me into my prison and I'm laughing now, strapped to the electric chair, I'm laughing at the pious faces of the guards and the wardens and the prison chaplains, and I'm laughing and I'm laughing and on my lips I have only the taste of Capri Sun. Pacific Cooler flavor.

How Wonderful! posted:

First thing's first is I get a job in town, not a good one, but a job. And every week I make a small deposit down at the bank under an assumed name. Just little drips. Maybe a slice of bread. Maybe a piece of cheese. Maybe a couple of handsome wet lettuce leaves. Why? So when anybody asks why I'm hanging around outside the bank on a weekday morning, I can say, why, I'm here to make a deposit and I guess I got here early. Here's my card. Here's my account.

But really?

What I'm doing is watching the trucks. Every morning, like clockwork, the trucks. Taco trucks. Halal trucks. Icecream trucks. Burger trucks. Trucks full of samosas. Trucks heavy with breakfast sandwiches, the kind that come wrapped up in foil and exhaling curls of smoke, the good kind, the kind that make you forget what the rest of the day has balled up in a hard fist behind its back. They pull up, the lunch trucks, with the same heavy-lidded drivers, the same cigarette-smoking men who ferry their hauls into the bank with empty expressions, the same tired old men keeping watch in the back with unloaded pistols at their soft, pale hips... and I'm right there watching. Learning. Remembering.

And all this time I'm going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home, and the dame is there waiting for me, a little less patient every day, asking when? When? And I say hold your horses doll-face. Lunch happens when it happens. And maybe she's had a little to drink and she'll scratch and swap at my face and cry and keep saying when when when until she tires out but every night it ends the same, the two of us coiled together on the kitchen floor, whispering "patience, patience," into each others' hair.

The hardest part besides the waiting is modifying the trailer. We bought a big, handsome trailer, the kind that hitches onto the back of a truck, that the suburban parents and the fat retirees like to buy to take on their vacations or move into their suburban dream homes. A huge, unwieldy thing. But ours is different. A false back on a hinge, a kind of secret door-- large enough to eat lunch in front of. Large enough to hide a truck behind.

Finally, the day comes. It's pizza day down at the bank. Folino's has a truck out front, and I watch the trim young men hop out and head in. The driver ambles off to have a cigarette around the corner. That means it's just me and the squirrely old man with the gun. I'm fine with that. Killing's an ugly business but it's an ugly world. I leap in silently, and take the springy dough out of my pocket, forming a loose, flat disc. I prefer to work with plain bread flour, like I learned in the war. New York boys talk a big game about semolina, the special water in the faucets, but that's not what this is about. I toss the dough in the air a few times, spinning it like a roulette wheel, and then it's over the old man's head, and he's kicking, and then, before long, he's not kicking at all, and he'll never be kicking again. 40 seconds. That gives me plenty of time and at this point it's like I can smell the lunch, can taste it on my tongue. But not yet, not really.

I slip a couple pepperonis in the ignition, an old trick but a good one, and I'm on the road, taking the corners hard and reckless, and before long I'm backing into the trailer. I'm giddy and I feel the dame pull out and onto the highway and I know we're on our way to the picnic spot, and I feel every bump in the road. I can't take it anymore. I start ripping into the burlap sacks jostling all over the back of the truck, I need to know what's for lunch. And then I see it. The scuffed cardboard corners, the sickly yellow packaging. It's a Lunchable. Pepperoni pizza. Snickers. You've seen it and you know it too. My heart sinks and I toss it aside, digging for hot crispy pizza underneath. But my fingers dig into more cardboard. Lunchable, Lunchable, Lunchable. I tear open the next bag and it's Lunchables as far as the eye can see. I can't help it. I start laughing. I start laughing at the tasteless beige crust and the sugary sweet sauce and the cold, starchy cheese and I keep laughing, I laugh when the feds pull us over and I laugh when they drag me into my prison and I'm laughing now, strapped to the electric chair, I'm laughing at the pious faces of the guards and the wardens and the prison chaplains, and I'm laughing and I'm laughing and on my lips I have only the taste of Capri Sun. Pacific Cooler flavor.

How Wonderful! posted:

First thing's first is I get a job in town, not a good one, but a job. And every week I make a small deposit down at the bank under an assumed name. Just little drips. Maybe a slice of bread. Maybe a piece of cheese. Maybe a couple of handsome wet lettuce leaves. Why? So when anybody asks why I'm hanging around outside the bank on a weekday morning, I can say, why, I'm here to make a deposit and I guess I got here early. Here's my card. Here's my account.

But really?

What I'm doing is watching the trucks. Every morning, like clockwork, the trucks. Taco trucks. Halal trucks. Icecream trucks. Burger trucks. Trucks full of samosas. Trucks heavy with breakfast sandwiches, the kind that come wrapped up in foil and exhaling curls of smoke, the good kind, the kind that make you forget what the rest of the day has balled up in a hard fist behind its back. They pull up, the lunch trucks, with the same heavy-lidded drivers, the same cigarette-smoking men who ferry their hauls into the bank with empty expressions, the same tired old men keeping watch in the back with unloaded pistols at their soft, pale hips... and I'm right there watching. Learning. Remembering.

And all this time I'm going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home, and the dame is there waiting for me, a little less patient every day, asking when? When? And I say hold your horses doll-face. Lunch happens when it happens. And maybe she's had a little to drink and she'll scratch and swap at my face and cry and keep saying when when when until she tires out but every night it ends the same, the two of us coiled together on the kitchen floor, whispering "patience, patience," into each others' hair.

The hardest part besides the waiting is modifying the trailer. We bought a big, handsome trailer, the kind that hitches onto the back of a truck, that the suburban parents and the fat retirees like to buy to take on their vacations or move into their suburban dream homes. A huge, unwieldy thing. But ours is different. A false back on a hinge, a kind of secret door-- large enough to eat lunch in front of. Large enough to hide a truck behind.

Finally, the day comes. It's pizza day down at the bank. Folino's has a truck out front, and I watch the trim young men hop out and head in. The driver ambles off to have a cigarette around the corner. That means it's just me and the squirrely old man with the gun. I'm fine with that. Killing's an ugly business but it's an ugly world. I leap in silently, and take the springy dough out of my pocket, forming a loose, flat disc. I prefer to work with plain bread flour, like I learned in the war. New York boys talk a big game about semolina, the special water in the faucets, but that's not what this is about. I toss the dough in the air a few times, spinning it like a roulette wheel, and then it's over the old man's head, and he's kicking, and then, before long, he's not kicking at all, and he'll never be kicking again. 40 seconds. That gives me plenty of time and at this point it's like I can smell the lunch, can taste it on my tongue. But not yet, not really.

I slip a couple pepperonis in the ignition, an old trick but a good one, and I'm on the road, taking the corners hard and reckless, and before long I'm backing into the trailer. I'm giddy and I feel the dame pull out and onto the highway and I know we're on our way to the picnic spot, and I feel every bump in the road. I can't take it anymore. I start ripping into the burlap sacks jostling all over the back of the truck, I need to know what's for lunch. And then I see it. The scuffed cardboard corners, the sickly yellow packaging. It's a Lunchable. Pepperoni pizza. Snickers. You've seen it and you know it too. My heart sinks and I toss it aside, digging for hot crispy pizza underneath. But my fingers dig into more cardboard. Lunchable, Lunchable, Lunchable. I tear open the next bag and it's Lunchables as far as the eye can see. I can't help it. I start laughing. I start laughing at the tasteless beige crust and the sugary sweet sauce and the cold, starchy cheese and I keep laughing, I laugh when the feds pull us over and I laugh when they drag me into my prison and I'm laughing now, strapped to the electric chair, I'm laughing at the pious faces of the guards and the wardens and the prison chaplains, and I'm laughing and I'm laughing and on my lips I have only the taste of Capri Sun. Pacific Cooler flavor.

How Wonderful! posted:

First thing's first is I get a job in town, not a good one, but a job. And every week I make a small deposit down at the bank under an assumed name. Just little drips. Maybe a slice of bread. Maybe a piece of cheese. Maybe a couple of handsome wet lettuce leaves. Why? So when anybody asks why I'm hanging around outside the bank on a weekday morning, I can say, why, I'm here to make a deposit and I guess I got here early. Here's my card. Here's my account.

But really?

What I'm doing is watching the trucks. Every morning, like clockwork, the trucks. Taco trucks. Halal trucks. Icecream trucks. Burger trucks. Trucks full of samosas. Trucks heavy with breakfast sandwiches, the kind that come wrapped up in foil and exhaling curls of smoke, the good kind, the kind that make you forget what the rest of the day has balled up in a hard fist behind its back. They pull up, the lunch trucks, with the same heavy-lidded drivers, the same cigarette-smoking men who ferry their hauls into the bank with empty expressions, the same tired old men keeping watch in the back with unloaded pistols at their soft, pale hips... and I'm right there watching. Learning. Remembering.

And all this time I'm going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home, and the dame is there waiting for me, a little less patient every day, asking when? When? And I say hold your horses doll-face. Lunch happens when it happens. And maybe she's had a little to drink and she'll scratch and swap at my face and cry and keep saying when when when until she tires out but every night it ends the same, the two of us coiled together on the kitchen floor, whispering "patience, patience," into each others' hair.

The hardest part besides the waiting is modifying the trailer. We bought a big, handsome trailer, the kind that hitches onto the back of a truck, that the suburban parents and the fat retirees like to buy to take on their vacations or move into their suburban dream homes. A huge, unwieldy thing. But ours is different. A false back on a hinge, a kind of secret door-- large enough to eat lunch in front of. Large enough to hide a truck behind.

Finally, the day comes. It's pizza day down at the bank. Folino's has a truck out front, and I watch the trim young men hop out and head in. The driver ambles off to have a cigarette around the corner. That means it's just me and the squirrely old man with the gun. I'm fine with that. Killing's an ugly business but it's an ugly world. I leap in silently, and take the springy dough out of my pocket, forming a loose, flat disc. I prefer to work with plain bread flour, like I learned in the war. New York boys talk a big game about semolina, the special water in the faucets, but that's not what this is about. I toss the dough in the air a few times, spinning it like a roulette wheel, and then it's over the old man's head, and he's kicking, and then, before long, he's not kicking at all, and he'll never be kicking again. 40 seconds. That gives me plenty of time and at this point it's like I can smell the lunch, can taste it on my tongue. But not yet, not really.

I slip a couple pepperonis in the ignition, an old trick but a good one, and I'm on the road, taking the corners hard and reckless, and before long I'm backing into the trailer. I'm giddy and I feel the dame pull out and onto the highway and I know we're on our way to the picnic spot, and I feel every bump in the road. I can't take it anymore. I start ripping into the burlap sacks jostling all over the back of the truck, I need to know what's for lunch. And then I see it. The scuffed cardboard corners, the sickly yellow packaging. It's a Lunchable. Pepperoni pizza. Snickers. You've seen it and you know it too. My heart sinks and I toss it aside, digging for hot crispy pizza underneath. But my fingers dig into more cardboard. Lunchable, Lunchable, Lunchable. I tear open the next bag and it's Lunchables as far as the eye can see. I can't help it. I start laughing. I start laughing at the tasteless beige crust and the sugary sweet sauce and the cold, starchy cheese and I keep laughing, I laugh when the feds pull us over and I laugh when they drag me into my prison and I'm laughing now, strapped to the electric chair, I'm laughing at the pious faces of the guards and the wardens and the prison chaplains, and I'm laughing and I'm laughing and on my lips I have only the taste of Capri Sun. Pacific Cooler flavor.

Finger Prince posted:

The All New Vegan Baconator®

sobersally posted:

sobersally posted:

Gorgeous Zan posted:

grilled cheese but your body is intolerant of the cheese

Drink-Mix Man posted:

underaged cheddar

How Wonderful! posted:

First thing's first is I get a job in town, not a good one, but a job. And every week I make a small deposit down at the bank under an assumed name. Just little drips. Maybe a slice of bread. Maybe a piece of cheese. Maybe a couple of handsome wet lettuce leaves. Why? So when anybody asks why I'm hanging around outside the bank on a weekday morning, I can say, why, I'm here to make a deposit and I guess I got here early. Here's my card. Here's my account.

But really?

What I'm doing is watching the trucks. Every morning, like clockwork, the trucks. Taco trucks. Halal trucks. Icecream trucks. Burger trucks. Trucks full of samosas. Trucks heavy with breakfast sandwiches, the kind that come wrapped up in foil and exhaling curls of smoke, the good kind, the kind that make you forget what the rest of the day has balled up in a hard fist behind its back. They pull up, the lunch trucks, with the same heavy-lidded drivers, the same cigarette-smoking men who ferry their hauls into the bank with empty expressions, the same tired old men keeping watch in the back with unloaded pistols at their soft, pale hips... and I'm right there watching. Learning. Remembering.

And all this time I'm going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home, and the dame is there waiting for me, a little less patient every day, asking when? When? And I say hold your horses doll-face. Lunch happens when it happens. And maybe she's had a little to drink and she'll scratch and swap at my face and cry and keep saying when when when until she tires out but every night it ends the same, the two of us coiled together on the kitchen floor, whispering "patience, patience," into each others' hair.

The hardest part besides the waiting is modifying the trailer. We bought a big, handsome trailer, the kind that hitches onto the back of a truck, that the suburban parents and the fat retirees like to buy to take on their vacations or move into their suburban dream homes. A huge, unwieldy thing. But ours is different. A false back on a hinge, a kind of secret door-- large enough to eat lunch in front of. Large enough to hide a truck behind.

Finally, the day comes. It's pizza day down at the bank. Folino's has a truck out front, and I watch the trim young men hop out and head in. The driver ambles off to have a cigarette around the corner. That means it's just me and the squirrely old man with the gun. I'm fine with that. Killing's an ugly business but it's an ugly world. I leap in silently, and take the springy dough out of my pocket, forming a loose, flat disc. I prefer to work with plain bread flour, like I learned in the war. New York boys talk a big game about semolina, the special water in the faucets, but that's not what this is about. I toss the dough in the air a few times, spinning it like a roulette wheel, and then it's over the old man's head, and he's kicking, and then, before long, he's not kicking at all, and he'll never be kicking again. 40 seconds. That gives me plenty of time and at this point it's like I can smell the lunch, can taste it on my tongue. But not yet, not really.

I slip a couple pepperonis in the ignition, an old trick but a good one, and I'm on the road, taking the corners hard and reckless, and before long I'm backing into the trailer. I'm giddy and I feel the dame pull out and onto the highway and I know we're on our way to the picnic spot, and I feel every bump in the road. I can't take it anymore. I start ripping into the burlap sacks jostling all over the back of the truck, I need to know what's for lunch. And then I see it. The scuffed cardboard corners, the sickly yellow packaging. It's a Lunchable. Pepperoni pizza. Snickers. You've seen it and you know it too. My heart sinks and I toss it aside, digging for hot crispy pizza underneath. But my fingers dig into more cardboard. Lunchable, Lunchable, Lunchable. I tear open the next bag and it's Lunchables as far as the eye can see. I can't help it. I start laughing. I start laughing at the tasteless beige crust and the sugary sweet sauce and the cold, starchy cheese and I keep laughing, I laugh when the feds pull us over and I laugh when they drag me into my prison and I'm laughing now, strapped to the electric chair, I'm laughing at the pious faces of the guards and the wardens and the prison chaplains, and I'm laughing and I'm laughing and on my lips I have only the taste of Capri Sun. Pacific Cooler flavor.

How Wonderful! posted:

I slip a couple pepperonis in the ignition, an old trick but a good one, and I'm on the road, taking the corners hard and reckless

Drink-Mix Man posted:

statutory grapes

Drink-Mix Man posted:

hummus, side

Drink-Mix Man posted:

hummus, side

Slush Garbo posted:

two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.