Triumph

Normally, when a specific friend and I go to the range, we go after to a Denny's and discuss. The topics of our discussions range far and wide, from the behavior of our firearms that night to designs for self-disarming land mines, to how to thwart fascism by any means necessary.

Before I left, I noticed thay my ten year old PHEV wasn't charging from the plug. There's a little lighted circle around the charge port that's supposed to light up when you plug it in, and it just wasn't. And then also not charging. Huh. Well, off I go anyway.

This time, we went to the range near my friend, which is about 45 minutes drive from my house, mostly on the interstate. The highways in my metro area are fast, and it wasn't long before I was behind a Dodge Charger in the left lane going about 82 MPH. Just a moment after that, a Porsche Cayman came blazing past both of us in the middle lane. The Charger put the accelerator on, and I used my cruise control to up my own speed. While I didn't actually go this fast, I learned that the maximum speed my cruise will allow me to set is 103 MPH.

I pulled into the range parking lot just after 7PM, and my friend was already there. I parked, opened the car door, and was confronted with the prominent and unmistakable smell of electricity. I might end up needing a tow, but for now, it was time to make loud holes in paper.

I brought my 9mm Glock 43 clone, my friend brought a full size 9mm and a 22 pistol. We started at ten yards, did "okay". 25 yards was right out, though I did manage to land a single bullseye at that range. Dumb luck, for sure. 15 yards was acceptable, and my gun only failed to extract once over about a hundred rounds instead of the literally third of the time it does when I'd bought some Winchester ammo.

Fuck Winchester.

With that done, it was time to move on to the restaurant. Realizing that I had made a promise to all of you, I suggested that we switch it up and go for burritos.

Since the goal here was to discover whether being "full of burritos" produces the appearance of "happiness", Taco Bell would not be appropriate. Taco Bell is what you eat when you have given up on everything in life, and while I have both given up on life and eaten Taco Bell many times, on this occasion I did not want to discover the depths of my own despair again. Thankfully, there was a local restaurant nearby which had the word burrito in its name. This was the obvious choice.

I knew that this was the right place the moment I saw it. Not only did it have a busy parking lot, it used to be a Pizza Hut. As I crossed the threshold, a guy with full face tattoos was exiting. Inside was a decent line of people queued to collect their carry out, but the dining room had plenty of tables open. We chose a booth.

The decor was classic American diner, well lit, white paint and dark green-blue vinyl seat cushions that reminded me of international waters. The napkin holder was full, because you're gonna need it.

The server came over promptly with a red plastic basket of chips and a grade school food service bowl of salsa. The chips were fine, nothing particularly special, but the salsa was clearly made in house and not spooned from a giant vat with "Sysco" emblazoned on it. It had a slightly creamy appearance with an assortment of vegetables, and was spicy enough without being dangerous. Quite nice.

Were I not on this burrito mission, I would have ordered tacos, because they were having a $1 taco night. I overheard someone at another table ordering seven of them. Next time.

We ordered sodas, which came in Pizza Hut plastic glasses. Not the classic red ones, but translucent semi-clear ones, still with the bumpy surface, though. We also ordered burritos, having a choice between "baby" and "giant". I made the executive decision to order a single "giant" burrito, and count that as plural burritos, because even though the comic specifies "full of burritos", I am not a baby. For good measure, I added rice and beans.

While awaiting the delivery of our giant burritos, the discussion began.

My friend, as independent and resilient as he is, sometimes needs a little support with the struggles he faces. We all do, and so we hashed that stuff out for a bit. No big revelations or eureka moments, more like "Yeah, that shit sucks, and it's going to take time, and suck all the way through, and you have to do it, but you can and you will." Sometimes that's all there is to say.

That part of our discussion closed upon the arrival of our burritos. White oval plastic dinner plates, to match the salsa bowls. Cheap forks and black plastic handled steak knives that were definitely stolen from a Chili's. Or an Applebee's.

If you were expecting the beans and rice to be food service fare, you would be wrong. These were definitely kitchen-made, just like the salsa. The refried beans still had whole beans in it. (Aside: I caught myself there trying to decide whether to use "it" or "them" to refer to "refried beans", coming quickly to the conclusion that the phrase "refriend beans" is singular, the way "pants" or "scissors" are.) The Spanish rice was subtle and tender.

Three bottles of sauce were provided, one red, one green, and one white-green. The red was the spiciest, but none were offensively spicy. No, these sauces were meant to complement the main course without overshadowing it. All did that job impeccably.

That main course being: the burrito. Now, I've had bigger burritos in my life, specifically from a place called "Burritos the Size of Your Head", which did not at all have a misleading name. The tortillas they had at that place were the size of twin bed sheets. But this burrito before me was definitely large. I'm not sure it qualified as "giant".

The grilled steak in this burrito was perfect. Shredded rather than cut into cubes, and actually grilled until the edges got some nice crispy char on them. Maillard reaction FTW. The rest of the fillings were basic: lettuce, cheese, ... was there onion? Maybe? I could have stood for a bit of sour cream in there, and the cheese wasn't melted quite enough.

As we ate, our conversation shifted to lighter topics, and we ended up reminiscing about computers of the olden days. The Packard Bells and their 13" monitors with speakers attached to the sides. 8086 chips. Various off network pocket devices. You know, the kind of banter the elderly get up to these days. "Remember when you had to print driving directions off of MapQuest?"

This was not an exciting burrito, but I don't think that's what it was supposed to be. It was the Mexican version of homemade meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Comfort food. It was messy enough that I did have to leverage the plentiful napkins, but not so much so that any of it was falling off on to the plate. I cleaned that fucking plate, too, you'd think my dog had snuck in and licked it.

Now to answer the question you've all been waiting to see answered: Did being "full of burritos" give me the appearance of happiness? I have some unfortunate news:

I don't know. Because I forgot to ask my friend if I appeared happy, and I am a terrible judge of my own emotional state. Even if I was happy, I may not have appeared so.

On the other hand, I can say that by the end of our visit, my friend did appear happy, or at least happier than he was at the start. I'm not sure whether to ascribe this to the burrito, though, since he didn't eat very much of it and took most home with him. I do not believe the amount of burrito he ate was sufficient to qualify him as being "full of burritos".

There's always the chance that my reckless disregard in considering a single burrito to suffice as burritos had something to do with it.

Prologue, since I know someone will ask about the digestive after-effects of this evening meal: The comic portrays some kind of "puff" coming out of the burrito-filled character's face. Those puffs came out of somewhere else entirely. In the car. In the office when I got home. In bed all night long. Each and every time, I grimaced and considered going to the hospital or a priest, because of the brimstone emanating from my nether regions.

Absolutely worth it, 10/10, would burrito again, especially with my best friend.

Oh, my car is fine. Must have been the charging cord needing to be reset by unplugging from the wall and car for a while, because I plugged it back in when I got home and it lit up and started charging. I'm still going to shop for a car.

I said I would report back, and I am a man of my word.

I emerged from the hole beneath my house tonight with every intention to leave immediately and go to the nearest Arby's. Unfortunately, my wife had other ideas and sent me on several errands first. My hunger for "steak" would remain unsated for a time.

The second problem I faced was that there's just not that damned many Arby's around anymore. The errands I needed to run were in one direction, and the Arby's in another. Lack of food was starting to make me grouchy.

Of course, the final trip to the Arby's - twice as far away now as I had initially expected - happened during a period of heavy traffic. The Lady of the Phone was telling me to go one way, but I wanted to avoid a particularly dangerous interchange, so I had to zig zag through neighborhoods, bounding over the occasional railroad grade crossing.

Pulling up to the Arby's, the sign proclaimed: STEAK NuGGETS ARE HERE. I found it to be quite loud inside, with competing clamor of music and customers and employees shrieking at each other. There was a lady buying meals for at least four people, based on the number of drinks she was filling. She kept darting around from one side of the fountain machine to the other, to the counter, to the trash, somehow taking up the entire front lobby area.

I waited.

Finally, it was my turn to order. Greek gyro meal, crinkly fries, five piece Steak Nuggets. The young man at the register was attentive and friendly. Honestly, the service was really pleasant, which is more than I would have expected from this decades-old fast food restaurant. Usually, a restaurant in this neighborhood gets to be a certain age, and it falls into a weird chasm of bad management and health code violations. Not this time, I guess.

While it seemed to take a while for the order to appear, suddenly there it was, all nestled in a deep-sided oval plastic tray. I made my way to a table way in the back, away from the noise.

I chose the fries first. As I mentioned, I was hungry and grouchy, and I did not want that to improperly color my impression of Steak Nuggets. You deserve journalistic integrity, and that's what I aim to deliver. You might wonder, "But why didn't you get the curly fries?" I do not believe that strong spices belong on french fries. Properly prepared, a french fry carries subtle flavors on a raft of puffy starch in a crispy shell. A plain french fry, gently salted, is best. These were exactly that, and the oil they'd been fried in was light and clean.

I'll dip those fuckers in Horsey Sauce all day long, though.

The Steak Nuggets were served in a plain white plastic bowl/cup with a clear plastic top snapped over them. As noted elsewhere, there was a sticker on said cover that warned the diner to "stir before eating". I think this has to do with dissipating heat; these aren't deep fried (I don't think), but they do have a bit of liquid fat in them that could produce temperature issues.

The picture in the previous post was not at all what my Steak Nuggets looked like. Mine were darker, and didn't look like they'd been stored under a couch for some time. They just looked like ... meat. In the time between my original comment and now, I did some research on this item. Some people compared it to brisket, others to burnt ends. Both are kind of right. Steak Nuggets are in an impossible nexus between the two.

I'd chosen the honey mustard sauce, but I never opened it, opting instead for Horsey Sauce. I had forgotten: Arby's Horsey Sauce is the best fast food sauce anywhere. There will be no further discussion on this point.

Flavor-wise, they're not ... bad. They're fine. I could stand them to be a touch more black peppery, but the Horsey Sauce was an excellent complement (because of course it was). One piece did have a slightly rank "side flavor," but the pieces are clearly the same cuts you'd see from burnt ends, and those will have weird pockets of fat and connective tissue in them, so I'm not blaming Arby's for that. Even though they were on the dark side, there weren't any burnt or crusty pieces.

Texture was soft and moist, with a bit of stringiness, like you'd get with brisket. A little bit dry, but you'd really have to be tasting with a critic's mouth to notice.

The five piece Steak Nuggets was about $6, so a little more than a dollar a piece for these things. The pieces are "two bite" sized, just big enough that you really shouldn't jam a whole one in your steak hole, even though you could, and you're damned sure thinking about it, but then the risk of choking to death on a Steak Nugget at an Arby's flits briefly across your subconscious and you, for once in your life, make the right decision.

There's also a nine piece: I would avoid it. Five is enough. Five is maybe one too many. Remember those weird pockets of fat and connective tissue? Unless you're Inuit and regularly eat a bunch of whale blubber, that ain't gonna sit right. They also offer a sandwich of some kind, and some sort of "bowl," each including mysterious sauces and toppings which I did not care to experiment with. Just like a nice whisky, the first taste should be neat. Only after that ought you mix it up with other questionable ingredients.

The biggest culinary surprise at the Arby's was the Greek gyro. I've had my share of proper doner kebabs, and I've definitely had better. But for a fast food chain, it was really good. If I was in a situation where a gyro was needed immediately, or I was just lazy, and there was an Arby's close, my decision has already been made. Ask for extra sauce, but if they can maintain continuity on that gyro across time and space, so that it's always the same whenever and wherever you order it - yeah, that's a winner. It's a solid 7/10 gyro.

There was a plaque on the wall, with a bell attached. "If your service was great, RING THE BELL!" Everyone in the store was great, the food was frankly better than expected by a wide margin, and I might even go to Arby's again in the future.

I rang the bell.

I'm antipho.

It came up last night that there should maybe be a comm for remote work people, so now there is.

!RemoteWork@fedia.io