#375

Know what? Double post today. Post #374 was insufficient for this day's needs. Started okay, but my justifiable rage became unbanked and resulted in tomfoolery. It must stand, for I hit that publish button and that's that, but I can double or even triple post if I want to. I'll write posts all day if I feel like it. 

Anyhow, I hadn't had a smoke. Trying not to have a smoke. But now I've had a smoke, and now I want to write a nice post, with fun jokes. 

Fucking pathetic.

*

Had an idea for a deconstructed pizza resturant. Oh, it's so beautiful in my mind. 

Picture this: you are drawn towards a modest little building. The sign out front merely boasted the letters "PZ", but it is clearly a pizza place--there is a picture of pizza on the sign, and one on the window, which looks beautiful and hot and crusty and does not obscure the red-and-white checkered tablecloths and little tabletop waiters full of dressings and bottles of red pepper flakes. 

You enter. There is no such classic scene. The window was some kind of blind hologram. There are only bare formica tables and hardbacked wooden chairs. The walls are glaring uninterrupted white; there are no plants or other decorations. Only the tables and chairs and the double doors leading to the kicthen. There is no music. An impeccable "mater d" glides you to your table before you can turn around. 

Once seated, the server offers you a list of the pizzas of the day, Relaxing slightly, you make your selection. 

In a trice, a plate is brought out from the kitchen. On it, in spare yet artful arrangement, are one of each of the uncooked toppings that would have been on the pizza you ordered. A glass full to the brim of steaming pizza sauce is placed next to it in front of you. As you process what is happening, the smell of hot, melted cheese is piped into the dining room.

After almost two whole minutes have elapsed, a bill totaling one hundred and eighty-seven dollars with gratuity included is placed just within reach of your hand, opposite the glass. 

God, it's so pure I could cry.

(insert joke stolen from Jeremy Clarkson marveling at the circumference and unflagging tumescence of my genius)

*

I also have a plan to save America with a nationwide network of federally subsidized diners--a freestanding, unkillable diner for every single neighborhood, every housing project, every town too small for much else. Carbon-neutral buildings surrounded by carbon-fixing native groundcover, serving better-than-organic and sustainably farmed produce, animal products, and grain preparations, available to the community at fixed prices twenty-four hours a day.

Delicious grits and eggs served with top-notch butter and real coffee all for a buck fifty. A well-paid server with a pension and all the health insurance they will ever need is happy to top you off, calling you "hon", or "darlin". Later, you can come back for a big delicious sandwich made to order for four bucks; the cook remembers you and tips you a wink and a spatula salute. Sheeit, you'll splurge today: return once more for a chicken dinner of half a bird, roast potatoes and green beans, and a piece of pie homemade the night before. Seven dollars even. Take the drumstick home for a snack tomorrow.

Nice. Oh, and kids under twelve eat free off the actually legit and thoughtful kid's menu. 

*

That second part wasn't a joke, just a dream too beautiful to live, I guess. It's funny, everyone I've ever told about it loves it, some people even cry a little bit. I bet if we took one of those so-precious nationwide polls, this idea would meet with approval so universal it would break records. But we live in the world that we have. Not so much the one we'd like to have.

(insert stolen Jeremy Clarkson joke about how my genius triggers seismographs and immaculately impregnates fertile organisms that draw too close to its magical influence)

--JL