Hot Meat Hoedown
Too cheap to hold a real company picnic, my employer instead set up a tent and some tables in the parking lot and held a barbecue today. What a darling little affair it was. All our superiors, or our superiors’ superiors, donned little down-home effects, sporting straw hats and overalls with red handkerchiefs around the neck, and aprons with cowboys riding bucking broncos and twirling their lassos in the air. Oh, how the corporate tables had ever so briefly turned; instead of merely smiling politely while adjusting his tie in the bathroom mirror, Mike Tinsley was now calling me “pardner”, and handing me cornbread. Amazingly good cornbread, at that. The food was surprisingly good overall, actually; I didn’t eat any of the barbecue chicken, but the pulled pork was tasty, and not entirely unlike the true stuff you can get back home. Unfortunately my sugar embargo ended after only two days; I ate a couple of chocolate chip cookies, but I was only following orders. I mean, hey, can you blame me? Anyway, the food was good, and I got a free Crews-style handkerchief out of it, so all in all I'm pretty much living like a king.