gig who? (part ii)

i hate to say it, but this was probably the coolest sight to me on my excursion to college station…

who gives a shit, you might ask? well, anyone around my age (or slightly there after) who grew up in lockhart. or bastrop. or any of the other little towns this chain populated in the late ’80s – early ’90s. but i’m getting a bit ahead of myself…

while i was traipsing between outlet I and outlet II in aggieland, i saw the sprint store. knowing my bill was due in the next day or two and having the cash on me, i decided that on my way out i’d stop off and pay the fiddler. when i went in and was waiting for the sprint anti-atm (the machine where you feed money INTO it and all you get is a receipt) i noticed that they had a special on the phone one notch down from mine…if you bought the phone for $89.99, you could get the camera that attached to it (and to mine as well) for $10 provided you were signing up for new service, signed a two year agreement, etc, etc, etc. when i had bought my phone, the camera was $99.99 on it’s own…which is why i didn’t have it.

a sales guy approached me while i waited in line and asked me if i needed anything. i replied, “well, that all depends…can you sell me the phone for $10 even though i already have a phone and i’m not gonna sign shit for a new contract?”. he turned his head over his shoulder and yelled to the guy behind the counter, “is jason here?”. “no man, he’s at lunch…”, was the response. he turned back to me and before he could get a word out i asked, “who’s jason?” “jason’s our manager”, he smiled, “and he’s gone for an hour…i’ll sell you the camera for ten bucks”. so that’s how we got the picture of the sign. and many more visual to come as i master that damn thing. it has no focus. it has no flash. but you know what? it was ten fucking bucks. fuck it.

my senior year in high school a new burger joint opened in town…texas burger. it fucking rocked. great food, great prices, and less than two minutes from campus…and that was WITH traffic (keep in mind…this is lockhart we’re talking about…back when our population was only in the four digit range). they only had one little flaw…they never knew how to handle a lunch rush. but for the quality of food, that was okay.

they served up a kick-ass burger in a basket with fries and a drink for something in the neighborhood of three bones. maybe three-fitty. the burger would be wrapped up in wax paper and sitting in one end of the basket, and the rest would be filled with fries (not in their own bag, just loose). the problem was all in the timing. see, you’d get there three minutes after getting in your car. and you’d order within five. but then you’d have to sit for thirty. everything was made fresh. so all of a sudden a basket’s dropped in front of you with your lunch, your starving, and you have to be in geometry class in ten minutes. so you’d scarf down your fries, grab your burger (since it was wrapped separately) and go…and eat your burger in the car and as you walked down the hall to class dropping the wax wrapping in the trash can just inside the classroom door.

the problem was, this built a habit in me. from then on, for years, whenever i went somewhere and got a burger and fries, i would always eat all the fries, down to that little, bastard, nothing but batter leftover shrapnel fry, and THEN start in on the burger. no matter how casual the time line was. i slowly was braking my habit of this when i started hanging out with this girl christine (who was a photo student at st. edward’s and always said if she couldn’t make her living as a photographer she was gonna go be a grade school teacher in vegas…which she ended up doing). one time we went to burger king and i ate all the fries before my burger for no explainable reason. she said it bugged her. she told me not to do that. so, just to get under her skin, it became a habit again…and it stuck with me until just recently after that.

never mind the fact she took that “we make it your way” slogan of burger king WAY to far…thankfully, she’s a vegetarian now, so i never have to see the visual that was her order…

“let me have a whopper with cheese, no tomatoes, no lettuce, no onions, with extra mayonnaise, extra mustard, extra ketchup, and extra pickles…”

a cheeseburger, with shit loads of pickles, and a good half inch of slime keeping it from ever, EVER touching the bread. lovely. how it never just slipped out of the damn bun and landed with a wet PLOP on the table is beyond me. that kinda diet would probably turn me off meat, too.

but sadly, as l-town grew and got mcdonald’s and such, most people stopped going to texas burger. while they still had the best burgers (in my opinion), they were far from the cheapest, and so for some odd reason (and this is all town lore, you understand) after a large insurance policy was taken out, the place burned to the ground. same thing happened to the one in bastrop (coincednetally, same owner). but the one in caldwell, which is fifteen minutes our side of college station, was spared. so that’s where lunch (and the picture) happened on wednesday. not worth the commute just for the food, but a nice break on the way back…

Replies: 5 Comments

i agree. hut’s sucks balls. and i like grins. tap room is cool. river pub rocks, but i’ve really only drank there.

josh said @ 07/18/2003 06:05 PM CST

i dunno….if i want a good burger, i tend to hit the river pub. although tap room burgers are bad ass, how can you NOT eat the ribs? in s.a. i recomend chester’s, and in austin, for some reason, i rarely eat burgers. and before anyone says anything, hut’s did NOTHING for me…

sean said @ 07/18/2003 12:54 PM CST

i cant say anything bad about the tap room, the only thing i ever order there is beer(sweet nectar of the gods).but if your on the square(at sharp things)try cafe on the square, everything is good.avoid gordos, that place bites, no pun intended.

shane said @ 07/18/2003 12:30 PM CST

ahhh the old texas burger. i remember it well,as i should, i wired the damn thing. nothing to do with the fire so i’m told. remember lippy smashing his face in the tub’o’fries? i forgot all about that until i saw the pic. i have to disagree with shane. I HATE GRINS. the food sucks its to expensive the waitstaff are dicks. that about covers it. try the tap room next to sharp thing on the square in san marcos 396-something something something something(oh great now i’m doing it too, and i don’t even have a tat)best food in town.i will understand if shane cant go for some reason.

JAB said @ 07/18/2003 12:17 PM CST

that sucks about Texas burger gettin torched, but at least you still have floyd’s and blacks(well worth almost any drive to lockhart).and if you want a great burger with a half hour wait, you can always go to grins in san marcos.great food, great view(from the outside deck),and always packed with cuties from campus.

shane said @ 07/18/2003 10:48 AM CST