[update #8]

I am not really sure which cart (on the wild streets of Manhattan) I got this “Chicken & Rice with Red Sauce/White Sauce & a Salad” (I think that is it’s proper name) from – but as you can tell from the picture . . . it was nowhere near up to snuff.

I really missed this kind of food while in the deep South – and by ‘this kind of food’ I clearly mean food that is made in more than likely super-clean – do I really want to even think about where (or what) that meat came from – that I am about to eat out of that cute little tin type of food container type of food. Jeez-o-pete . . . this was supposed to be my big welcome back to the kitchen on wheels “Please – my friend – pull up a seat at our table . . . the sidewalk!” – I even walked all the way to Bryant Park so that the setting would be perfect [which is why I can’t figure out where the food came from] . . . and then . . . not not so so good.

I was only able to eat the rice and salad parts – and was only able to choke that down because I was hungry enough to eat with a bear (have you ever tried?!) . . .

Not to worry though . . . there are (at least) hundreds of carts out there for me to try (and I am just talking about in my direct path on the way to Times Square) . . . and my stomach is nothing – if not made of stern stuff . . . so I will carry on – until my cart food itch has been scritch – scritch – scratched.

Or until I end up at some classy hospital hooked up to a stomach pump . . .

Hooray!

Ants 42

[update #7]

Don’t talk to me about Buckley’s. As a matter of fact . . . don’t even look in my general direction when the concept of Buckley’s floats through your mind . . . it is all just too terrible – seriously.

Buckley’s is a joke of a cough syrup from our hilarious neighbors to the north (Canada) . . . and taking it is like licking a dollop of Vick’s mentholated rub off of a strip of fly paper that has been steeping in a cup of gasoline(ated) turpentine. It is bad bad bad in ways that I can’t even figure out – so heed my experience as a warning.

I had been sick for a few days and the normal ways of kicking the sickness to the curb weren’t quite working out (you know that I am talking all about you Dayquil/Nyquil knock out combo) . . . and so I took the advice of a fellow coworker and went on a mission to find some of what he called “Some really terrible stuff.”

At first – I couldn’t find it anywhere – but I became more focused when a worker at a store said “Oh – people are buying up all of the Buckley’s . . .” when I asked here where I could find it. What was this magic medicine – that I had never heard of – that people were in such a rush to buy?! I absolutely had to have some of this nasty stuff so that it could make me all kinds of better.

When I finally got my hands on some, I laughed at the slogan on the bottle “It tastes awful. And it works.” I mean come on – it was just some in the aisle medicine – how bad could it be?! Then I took it out of it’s box and marveled at the translucent brown bottle with the pearlecent white liquid with a blue-ish tinge that I was holding in my hand. I then took a one and one-half teaspoon swig from the bottle.

Everything went blank for me at that point as the ferocious swill ate it’s way down my throat – causing me into a fit of jerks and gaggles as it went. All that I can figure is that I was completely destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up when I took a taste . . . lacking only the cold that had been sticking with me . . . I was a whole and better person – albeit with a really bad taste in my mouth that I can still conjure up a week later . . .

And then 4 (four) hours later – when the dosage wore off – the coughing came right back . . . and it was time to take another sip.

So please . . . don’t even talk to me about Buckley’s – whatever you do. . . because it is more than – more than kind of – kind of yucky – blea-uuuuugh – blug – blug – blug – amo-cabo-uch-uch-uch.

Ants 41

[update #6]

What in the beans?! What kind of a place is this anyway? Today when I got into the shower – expecting to fall into the world of cleansing ribbons that I had been enjoying up to this point – there it was – staring at me from it’s divot in the wall . . . from it’s little soap kingdom – [which I had never paid a lick of interest to before it became occupied (probably with much bloodshed and force) by (one of) the current scourge(s) of my (shower)] – was . . . a pink bar of soap full of such malice and mischief that I felt forced to reach (slowly) out of the curtain and proceed to get fully dressed for the remainder of my shower.

Now – obviously – you are yelling at your monitor “What the pinto you ninny?!” or something probably very similar to that about my “getting all kinds of clothed in the shower” method of dealing with this situation . . . but the look that was thrown my way by that bar of soap was really too much.

I don’t want to scare any of the weaker knee(ed) folks that are reading this . . . but I do feel the need to again point out some definite facts. The bar of soap was pink – very pink – and it is highly probable that it had some sort of fangs or at the very least a grappling hook (it did get where it got all by itself) – and I’m not sure – but I really think that I heard it speaking to a tube of shampoo in French about some form of an assault or something. People . . . this thing is a triple threat – pink/hook/(at least) bilingual . . . need I say more?!

[Well – of course the answer to that is probably not . . . but why stop now when the getting is getting good?!]

[Okay – this is annoying and uncomfortable after the last little brackets – but I actually do need to stop . . . evidently the pink bar of soap caught wind of me writing this up – and is threatening to sue me for liable if I don’t cease and desist. So now I guess that we can add litigious to his ever growing list of attributes.]

(I’m – a guessing that we haven’t heard the last of all of this . . . )