I was enjoying a nice day at IHOP, reading and enjoying the music and intercession. Lou Engle was over on the side, rocking back and forth just like a good Jewish man would. I don't think he's Jewish, but the rocking was great.
When lunch time came, I went out since we bread was unavailable that morning. Now in Grandview, it's not like you're going to find a Chipotle or anything, so you have to think a bit in order to not end up at a cheap place because you're tired of driving around and realizing the places sound gross. I ended up going with Chinese since Lauren doesn't like it that much. And this is where the story of my rice picks up steam.
There are really only 3 genres of Chinese restaurants. There's the overpriced duck restaurant, whereby your duck with rice has soy sauce on it ... so it tastes like $30 chicken. Then there's the Oriental Buffet Garden type, where it's $6 for all-you-can-eat. Not a bad deal, but I've heard of a few of these that get shut down for sanitary reasons. And finally the Peking Express or Panda Express or whatever they end up calling it, where you can get a load of rice and chicken for only $4. The Express is where I ended up, and the atmosphere was epic.
I enjoy the Chinese restaurant, as they still try to hire Asian employees who speak broken English with a thick accent. It's like being at Epcot Center, right here in the heart of Grandview, Missouri. At the Express, they somehow have 80 items to pick from ... but I went with my usual of the chicken and rice to avoid any mystery meat. In classic low-budget fast food restaurant style, he wrote my order on a styrofoam box and handed it through the window, where I can't see what hygenic standards they maintain back there.
When I sat down is when the humorous, bloggable material began. Since I'm by myself then I grab a booth within earshot of the TV in case there's some news on the tube, next to construction guy who is staring at the screen. At first glance, it looked like news since it was two guys sitting still in a room. Well I was in for a real treat ... the Express left it on the info-mercial channel for me! How exciting! Today's feature ... a coin. It was spinning in nice circles so that I could see both sides.
This week's special was a Barack Obama coin that also had George Washington's mug on it. Of course there were two guys talking back and forth about how I MUST have this coin. The first was "coin guy" who was a very smooth talker, explaining that first I should collect coins, and more importantly that I should buy this coin. You see, newspapers wear out, so you don't want to collect those. But coins are made of metal, so they last a lot longer. And this may be worth thousands of dollars someday because it's ... can you believe it ... a limited edition coin.
Without my mentioning the price, I'm sure you already guessed it ... $19.99. Not kidding. I can only buy it right now, because it's a "President-Elect" coin. Now I did read the other day that President-Elect means nothing in our country other than hype. But the excitment wasn't dwindling because not only was coin guy smooth, but his sidekick is none other than Montel Williams! I had my cell phone on my hip like a six shooter, just ready for the phone number.
But then Montel says, "Aren't they selling another similar coin for only 17 bucks? [he really did say "bucks"] It only has Obama's picture intead of both him and Washington. So you should get this one." Now Robin, Batman is doing a fine job convincing Americans they should buy this worthless coin, why did you have to say that? I think they lost 20% of their sales with that comment right there.
Coin guy's time is finally over, and my Chinese is settling nicely. By the way I escaped the rest of the day without abdominal pain, so it was a successful lunch run. As I'm walking out, they announce that this was a paid info-mercial, and we go to commercials. The first commercial was perfect ... an ad to go to their website called something like "on-tv-for-u" whereby they are selling everything online that you didn't buy from infomercials. So if you somehow refrained from pulling the impulsive trigger, no worries ... just buy it online. Now that's funny - a warehouse with all the stuff they couldn't sell. They're going to have a few Obama/Washington coins in there unless Montel covers them.
To wrap up the afternoon, they go to one more commerical. Yet another classic piece, as they are trying to sell me a dirt-tiller/weed-wacker combo in late night commercial fashion. What's up with TV commercials for sharp metal objects like weed wackers, knives, and samurai swords?
Well, you guessed correctly ... I was able to keep the cell phone in its holster (no, I don't really have one of those hip holsters for my cell-phone) and save my $19.99, along with saving by not visiting "on-tv-4-u.com" or buying the dirt-tiller. So what's the moral to this story? If Montel mentions that there are similar coins available already, grab the remote and find that channel in order to do some quality comparison in your TV shopping.
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5 comments:
bummer I was hoping you were going to watch or go online and find me something really unique for christmas.
Nice job resisting the temptation. :-) And another moral to the story: too many Americans spend too much time doing useless things like trying to hawk coins to people who shouldn't be wasting their money on garbage like that. But if we didn't have these sorts of infomercials and networks that show these infomercials, many people would be out of work. Maybe then America could invest some effort in doing something productive, like building a bridge or teaching a child. But that requires more effort than, and doesn't feel as good as, buying a coin from Montel.
I love the visual image of the cell-phone waiting to be pulled...you with your hand close by, fingers wiggling in anticipation for the call... a-la a western movie. Clint Eastwood would definitely lose in that showdown! And I've been wondering for months now whatever happened to Montell Williams. It's seriously kept me up at night. I'm grateful that your blog has been able to quench my insatiable curiosity and that I now can get a good night's sleep again. : ) - Yoh
This is a really great post ... very funny. I'm surprised more people haven't posted comments.
Wow, three great responses and still the ingratitude about posting comments. For shame. (Although it's quite possible that the fact that you would make an anonymous comment like that on our your own blog is even funnier than the post itself.)
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