Sinister: dot dash dot

[KevShindig at xxx.com]

      The surreal high point of my day was the Greek pizza joint.  I work for 
a television station in Boston, and today I had to get up at a ridiculously 
early hour and set up video equipment to record a Superior Court Hearing.  It 
involved a lot of waiting around for things to start, but I did manage to 
finish reading Aimee Bender's "An Invisible Sign of My Own" during all of it 
(really, really great book.....but you probably already knew that).
      After more work-related tomfoolery, I was really, really hungry.  
Spending nearly all my cash on an ill-conceived plan to see as many Belle and 
Sebastian live shows as possible next month (200 dollars for second row seats 
in Boston?  Sign me the hell up!) has left me a bit on the broke side, so my 
options were basically pizza or gumballs.
   At the pizza stand (I'd had gumballs for breakfast) the jaunty Greek 
fellow who ran the establishment saw me emerge from the work-mobile, with the 
big t.v. station logo on the side.  He then proceeded to harangue me, at len
gth, about satellite television stations.  Sometimes in Greek, sometimes in 
English.  I caught about every, oh, fifth word.  I did not, however, want to 
appear impolite, so I tried to nod a lot and interject with positive, 
non-commitall statements like, "Boy, I hear that!" and "You ain't just 
whistling dixie, Bucko!" 
    This seemed to get him even MORE animated, and he shouted "Do you know 
how many people in Greece watched the American Superbowl?", then he paused, 
as if he expected me to answer.  After a too-long silence he blurted, "TWO 
AND A HALF MILLION!"
      "Wow", I responded, not knowing what else to say.  I was enjoying the 
good-natured back-and-forth with my new pal, but all this human interaction 
was, admittedly, keeping him from giving me the slice of pizza which, at this 
point, I was anticipating so much that I kept singing the bit in the 
Turbonegro song "The Age of Pampirus" where they yell, "So you say you want a 
piece of pizza?  WELL NOT LIKE THIS!!!" over and over in my head.
       I figured the only way to really kill the conversation was to explain, 
in great detail, the plot of a comic book I had read when I was elementary 
school (which has stuck with me lo these many years in the parts of my brain 
where, say, the ability to tell right from left should be) wherein the 
culinary dish known as "pizza" was invented by the evil G.I. Joe villain 
Serpentor during one of his past lives.  I didn't actually tell the pizza guy 
this; I figured he'd find it boring (luckily, I have no such compuctions 
now!) but between the Turbonegro song and the comic book plot and the 
instinctual parts of me screaming "HUNGRY!" my brian was getting pretty noisy.
      "I'm sorry", I told him, "I really have to go."
      I took my pizza slice and left.  I've had better, but not recently.

Kevin
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 +-+    "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000     +-+
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 +-+               Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa                 +-+
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