I was driving home a few minutes ago, after having paid a visit to Walmart for some essentials and some non-essentials. By the way, did you all know Blimpie has $5.00 foot long subs just like Subway? I didn’t know that! I could swear they are at least half an inch longer than the Subway ones too. I haven’t tried one yet so as far as I know they could taste like piss on dirt, but you know… they’re five buck, is what I’m saying. I bought one for my daughter so I’ll ask her later if the thing was edible. So far I haven’t heard her puke so I assume it can’t be too bad.

 Where was I?

 Ah, yes, driving home. I turn onto my street and there is this small truck parked by the curb in front of the “Garden House”, so called because it’s a house in the corner of our street that has a fancy garden which is regularly serviced by a very tall black gentleman that for some reason also walks the owner’s dogs.  Maybe it’s two different very tall black gentlemen… anyway. The truck had a label that said The Cattle Exchange, Home Delivery.

 I started wondering what exactly this thing was all about. I mean, was this truck delivering a cow and maybe picking up a goat in exchange? The truck seemed small for a cow, maybe they had bought a baby cow. I could almost see the old guy that lives in the house looking at this cow and going “This is not a happy cow… I thought you told me these came from California. Are you trying to rip me off?”

 Well, I Googled this “Cattle Exchange” like every good American is expected to do, and turns out there’s more than one cattle exchange.  The first result I got from Google was about a company that does in fact deal in cattle sales, auctions, farm real estate and other cattle related businesses you really couldn’t care less about unless you are a cattle owner or a member of PETA.

 The very next result after that, number 2 in the Google list referred to the guys I had seen parked by the street. Turns out these people do deliver cows, in this case, dead cows in chunks, AKA beef.

 I might have just created a vegetarian or two among my readers.

 Interesting turn of events. As I was writing this a guy rang my doorbell and sure enough, “Good evening sir, I am from the Cattle Exchange.” We’ll get back to that.

 Well, it just happens the second page in the Google results is from a website called complaintsboard.com and it is a posting by someone from Mississippi who had been scammed by these folks. In fact results 2 and 3 of the Google search were customer complaints regarding having bought meat from them and then finding out they had been sold a lot less meat than they claimed. I believe one of them had ended up paying over 11 dollars a pound for her beef and chicken. Well, I’m not expert but that sounds a little high to me.

 Back to the guy on my door. He tells me he’s doing deliveries in this area and has been authorized by his boss to sell me all sorts of really good meat at wholesale prices in order to get new customers. Well, there are a couple of problems with this situation.

 First, I haven’t turned on my stove in so long I think it’s been trying to file for divorce. When your family owns a restaurant these sort of things can happen. Second problem was, my freezer is so full of junk I doubt I could fit the thin half of a hot dog in there. Incidentally, most of the stuff in my freezer has been there since before my toddler was born. I actually got a call from a university last week about sending an archeological expedition into the bottom shelf of my freezer.

 Last problem was, I was forewarned and therefore forearmed. Wow, I just confused myself… Whatever. So I knew these guys couldn’t be trusted. Cause the lady in Mississippi said so and in any case, who would trust some random guy that shows up on your door and offers to see you his meat? Uh… I mean, offers to sell you his beef and chicken and…

 Forget it.

 Well, I couldn’t really explain all this to the “Cattle Exchange” sales drone waiting on my front porch since, first of all, he had a truck full of meat that wasn’t getting any fresher and second, I had a blog to write. So, after quickly weighting my options and discussing possible alternatives with the voices in my head, I did the only responsible and honest thing I could do.

I lied and said we were all vegetarians.

08/26/2009