Snap Into A Slim Jim

Hello all. It is once again time for a story. Our story begins Monday afternoon. After not spending any time with my wife over the weekend I decided to be a nice guy and take her out shopping and out to dinner. well first we went to target. She bought clothes and I bought Reese’s which are on sale btw Bryan. Buy three 12 oz bag @ 1.99 each and get an E.T. Reese's holder thingy that lights up and is full of Reese’s all for free. We continued to the check out lane where we were forced to argue the fact that putting a big sale sign over a product and putting a picture of the item in a weekly advertisement does imply the item is on sale. However, the picture in the ad showed the same shorts with a slightly different belt so the stupid old lady wouldn’t let down. Finally, the arrival of her boss, who agreed with the stupid old lady, started to put things into focus. They were all suffering from Alzheimer’s. So in showing them the big sale sign over top of the product (completely aware of the risk of the two might possibly forget it by the time they got back to the register) we were able to convince them that the items were indeed on sale. Exit stage left and target also. On to dinner.

Well as many of you know, I am not good at making decisions, especially about food. I can eat almost anything so my tastes tend to disagree with others. Stacey on the other hand always knows exactly what she wants but lacks the balls to say it (Must be a woman thing). Finally I picked Big Boy.

I have not eaten in Big Boy in about 5-6 years. The place has not changed. They still have the buffet bar, the crayons, and the little placemats with pictures and connect the dots on one side so you have something to do with the crayons. Even their menu seemed to be as I remembered it. After looking it over I decided upon a Slim Jim. For those of you don't know what a slim Jim is, its a ham, melted Swiss, pickle, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with mayonnaise all on a sub bun that someone ran over with an autobus. They’re great! I get them all the time at the north end Coney Island. Stacey got the same thing but with onion rings. I got mine with the buffet bar. I had some soup with three bags of oyster crackers that I had smashed between the table and my forehead dumped in it, and I had a wonderful salad under 2 and a half pounds of ranch dressing. All was bob. I even got a Big Boy's original hand dipped vanilla ice cream shake. How exactly you hand dip an ice cream shake is beyond me but it was good just the same.

Finally after waiting for what seemed like days (but was probably closer to 5 minutes) the entrees arrived. I grabbed up my slim Jim and took a huge hankering bite out of it and slurped it down my cake hole. It left a very odd aftertaste in my mouth but I could not place it, being that I had eaten half of the first half in one bit without stopping to chew. (for those of you who don’t know, they always cross-cut slim jims unless you ask them not to I guess, then maybe you could get them to rip it down the center. haven’t tried yet but will be sure to next time.) After careful consideration I decided to eat the next bit a little slower. It tasted very good, but once again left a familiar after taste in my mouth. On the third bite and last bite of the first half, I finally pegged it. Strawberries, and not just and strawberries, rotten strawberries. Like the kind Meijer's sells. They look really good, so you buy them and take them home and put them in your fridge. When you wake up in the morning and grab one it squishes between your fingers in its semi-liquidated form and when you examine the rest of the package you see that over half of the strawberries are covered in a white snowy substance that is not at all appetizing. If you’ve ever eaten it anyways you know exactly the taste I’m taking about.

I was horrified. But at last I rationalized, why would my sandwich taste like rotten strawberries? I was being silly, and my taste buds must not be working correctly. So I took a break, ate some onion rings, had a bite of Stacey’s (which tasted fine). And finally got up the nerve to try again. First bite of the second half. BLAHCK! It was terrible. I threw back onto my plate. After having yet another delicious bite of Stacey’s, I decided to go exploring and find the source of my problem. Slowly I dissected the remains of my poor sandwich. Carefully labeling each layer and setting it aside in order so that I could put it back together. Bun. Mayo. Ham. Melted Swiss cheese. More mayo. Lettuce. Tomatoes. Pickle chips. Smashed rotten strawberry. Bun. SMASHED ROTTEN STRAWBERRY?!?!? WHAT THE FUCK?!?! I couldn’t believe it. I have no idea how got in there, but there was no mistaking it. It looked like it had been run over by an autobus just like the bun. So I put the sandwich back together just as it had been before, except this time I left the strawberry off.

I took a bite. And low and behold. No bad aftertaste. My slim Jim was delicious again. I felt redeemed. But also hungered for revenge. So since it was late at night and no one else was in there I pulled my pants down and took a shit under the bench. It took me about 37 seconds for those of you who keep time. Then I left a 3 dollar tip because the waitress had been friendly, and she isn’t the one who cooks the food anyways. We then paid in cash and immediately left the premises. VENGENCE IS MINE!