Food Town

Show of hands: Who eats meals? I'd raise both of my hands with fervor if I could, but I gots to keep my hands on the keyboard for my adoring fans. Meals are so good. They are so freakin good. Imagine a meal right now. So good, right?

A trip to the grocery store is the first step to the whole meal-making process. Ingredients might include: 2 all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a Sesame Street bun.

I'm sure we all have our favorite/most visited market. Mine is favorite'd due to it's proximity to where I make the meal-magic happen. Your choice could be it's amazing deals, choice of organic choices or vegan choices*, or there's a hot number workin that cash-register**.

My grocery store, at times, is rockin 4 out of 4 of the prior pros I listed. I'm not die-hard organic, and CERTAINLY not a vegan***, but it's still fun to see cool options. My Harlem grocery is a Foodtown. Other not as bomb-diggity groceries that are nearby are PathMark, C-Town, and Associated Foods.

This morning, I had a pretty uplifting morning this morning*. On my way home from some "business" I stopped by my local grocer's freezer for some knick-knacks. There was a new employee behind the register, and she was figuring out the buttons with help from her bagger, Vance****. I almost was in a good enough mood to be entirely too corny and say, "Welcome to my favorite Foodtown," "Welcome on board!" or "WHOOP WHOOP! You one of the good guys, now! Fight hunger!!! YAAY!" But, thankfully, I didn't do anything besides smile.

As I left the building, it occurred to me: Foodtown. Foodtown. Say it with me! "Foodtown." First thought is grocery store, but let's go further. FOODTOWN! Food town. Town of food. Oh my gosh, give me more! It's brilliant! OF COURSE I want to go to a town of food! Houses made of chicken breast! It rains Frank's Red Hot! Apples grow on trees!



"Hey Drew?"
Yes?
"Wanna go to Food Town?"
Ummmmm, YES!!!
"Mind if we stop by Happyville and maybe swing by AWESOME FREAKIN CITY, too?"
OMG r0x0rz let's go!

Let's visit our other fine grocery stores for a second.

PathMark. So, I'm wandering around in an open area, I see a little sign that points me back to the main trail. End of story. PATHMARK. Not hungry.

C-Town. What the hell do I say for this. C could mean Cocoa Puffs. Cocoa Puffs Town*****. Delicious, maybe, but I need protein if I'm going to wow the ladies with my muscles. Knaw mean?!

Associated Foods. Ridiculous. Now, I think of a food I want to eat, and immediately am forced to find things by which they are associated. Corn Flakes: Old, smelly farmer Jimbo, with that one tooth that's just got no idea where it's supposed to be. Really not hungry.


OF COURSE I'll go to Foodtown! It's a beautiful thing! Both in reality and in my warped sense of what a town of food would be! It will be my grocery till the end of time, even though I think half of their products are past the expiration date.

* Redundancy is the key to getting a point across. Use it. Use it often.
** Cash-register is not a euphemism for ass.
*** I would be more likely to eat human-meat. Someone call Danny Devito. He's got a guy for everything.
**** Bagger Vance. YES!
***** It rains milk...puddles form...they become chocolate milk puddles after some time.

Meanderers in NYC

As a first post, instead of a "Hey this happened today, and it was totes weird," I will do a, "Holy shit, this happens all the time, and it will never be justified."

I refer to the offense as the Sidewalk Meander.

I live in NYC. We walk really a lot. That's because the city is so huge packed into a small circumference! It really creates wondrous amounts of options for most things you could want out of life. For me: McDonald's, GameStops, and Bars. Of course, anywhere on the globe has the chance to be, at whatever moment, a dangerous place, but, NY has so many people in a small area, there is just a higher percentage for an act of violence or crime to occur to you, by you, bayou, Erika Badu. That being said, I'm sure I'm not the only New Yorker (I'm not native, but still) that walks with purpose to their destination. This means, I'm briskly moving forward and determining my path of least resistance far before any obstacle is near. I try hard to remain on a straight-ish path following traffic flow, only cutting across lanes when necessary.

BOOM! Some random piece of hell who was just standing, leaning on a stoop-post, decides he wants to slowly walk into the sidewalk perpendicular to the flow of traffic, with no awareness of anybody walking normally, like a person should. If you are in a field, sir, meander away. Let go of your awareness, and let the planet swallow you into it's vast, earthy goodness. But fuck, dude, this is a NY sidewalk. What made you think there wasn't anyone coming? I know my sister refers to my movement within my own apartment as "like an assassin," but my jeans are going "schwee! schwee!" with every step. I'm also movin a crisp 8 mph or somethin crazy! You will be hurt if it weren't for some catlike-reflexive fancy-footwork from ol' Drabes. I sidestep, juke, spin-move, etc. out of the way, and MOST LIKELY get some sort of "stupid walker" face from the bumbling, meander-man.

I mean, really, what ARE you doing? You just wanted to see if it was warmer over by the parked cars? Or what?! You tell me, asshole. I just sprained my ankle to avoid plowing my crotch into your flighty-ass.

The Sidewalk Meander can be greatly improved if people would just look both ways before crossing the "street." I learned how to do that before Kindergarten. Give it a shot.