Passenger

A charming, alarming chili bit of nonsense fried my circuits for the latest of the schnitzengruben factors, not at all unlike the sleaze you’d unravel with a long hard look at the compact disc (spectrum and all).

I helped an old lady off the bus, and ever since, people are just lumps of shit doing the bare minimum whenever possible at the expense of others. I’ve noticed that I tend to do the opposite (at the peril of tooting my own horn), where I neglect myself and only give my “authentic person” to people I don’t know a lick about. And then I turn around and neglect the needs of anyone who dared take the time to develop a rapport with this here sad sack.

All I know is this: there are ideas and there are ideals. Ideals may be met through the exploration of ideas, and ideas may only be found as a passenger of an old freight train (as it rumbles its way across the plains).

(#373)

We are the TOXIC Group:

Tastemakers
Obligating
Xylophones
Into
Conversation

Our meetings typically consist of 30 seconds of clever xylophone-related banter followed by 48 minutes of unbroken claptrappery (occasionally punctuated by a sneeze or self-important cough that reminds folks in the group of their own flimsy mortality). The list of covered topics is indeed long and tedious; an indeterminate amount of talking points is covered multiple–sometimes numerous–times, with very little ceremony.

The talking points typically meander around with little consequence, and our staffers have learned to endure them long enough to get to the meat of the meeting: attempting to reach a quorum on where to go for pizza afterwards. There’s been a glut of new “artisanal” pizza joints in the area, not to mention the existing restaurants who need gimmicks to keep up.

Gino’s Northeast: an old school pizzeria with a hint of sports bar (now with 25% more sass back)
Donnie’s Bunker: war hero’s spot with authentic Vietnam War memorabilia
Skip’s Dugout: retired baseball star’s spot with authentic ’60s and ’70s memorabilia
Gugliotti’s: Sicilian-themed ristorante
Chunkster’s: Most Toppings Around!®
Steggo’s Dino-mite Pizza: self-explanatory
Jeffrey’s Tamborine: adults-only gaming and entertainment-related eatery (wine allowed in the ball pit)

This particular installment of the TOXIC Group (#373) eventually ended with a near-unanimous selection of kofta kebab, since there’s only one local option for that cuisine and we were rapidly running out of time. For the record, a good portion of the group rallied for the adult play place, but Susie’s new around these parts, and we want her to stick around for a month or two before we test her patience with a drunken happy hour.