So. I was over to visit an ex-brother in law yesterday before lunch. His office is in the general vicinity of the Top Notch Drive-In, so I had lunch at the nifty little burger and fried chicken joint. They cook their burgers on an actual charcoal grill and their chicken is among the best in town. I had a burger and crispy tots, my usual.
Why this is remarkable isn’t the high quality of the food as it is remarkably consistent in its high qualities. I like to sit in my car and eat—Top Notch has it’s original car hop speaker system and tin-covered car port—while I listen to my radio. I have Sirius Satellite in the GTO and I had Left Radio, Channel 127 on your radio dial, and Ed Schultz was on. My food had just been dropped off and I’d unwrapped my burger for the first bite.
Is it even proper to say “on your radio dial” anymore? The only radio I even have with a dial is Granddaddy’s old Philco, and it’s in storage out to the barn. Everything else is digitized.
Before I take a first bite of any Top Notch burger, I always take a sniff first. There’s something intoxicating about that first whiff of charcoaled beef, pickles and onion that makes the burger more enjoyable. I guess it’s the same dealie as with wine.
OK, let’s back up a second. This might be my ADHD talking, but why do we say “ex-in laws” if we only have divorces from the wife or husband? I have only divorced one brother in law yet have been divorced to ten women. That one guy, a Baptist Deacon lawyer who works for the State of Texas to fight death sentence appeals, is a special case. Actually, I didn’t accept him as my in-law when I married his sister, so maybe he’s a bad example. I never did like that asshole.
When I asked him the question “What about the innocent man who is convicted wrongly and sentenced to death? How do you rectify, justify that in your mind putting him to death?”[,] he answered, he said to me, “Who cares? The death penalty is all about punishment of the guilty and we’re all guilty of something.”
I also heard the other day that he and his wife are big Santorum supporters. They don’t think Rick Perry is a big enough prick, they want an asshole like Santoria to be President. Asswipe dickwad Baptist right-wing Republican shitballs is what they are.
Anyway, so I sniffed a deep drag off my burger. My eyes were closed and Ed was talking to a man on the ground up to Michigan about the Repub primary. They were discussing the light voter turn-out and what it might mean. I exhaled my burger hit in a whoosh, and slowly opened my eyes. My focus settled on the door to the Top Notch dining room where an old fart was exiting with two little kids who appeared to be his grandkids.
One of them, the boy, was holding the man’s left hand at the wrist and hanging with his feet off the ground like kids love to do. The boy was laughing and swinging as he tugged the man’s shoulder out the joint. I was reminded of my youngest son who felt that my arm was the neatest carnival ride on the midway until he was three.
The other child, the girl, was a step behind and had her eyes plastered to the man’s right hip. They were walking towards me—I was in the last parking slot at the end of the carport so that my satellite radio would work—and the little girl’s fascination fascinated me. Their truck was parked right beside the GTO outside the cover of the carport. I was thinking how nice it was that the man didn’t park at a car hop speaker spot and then eat inside. I get pissed when the speaker spots are filled with empty cars.
The trio walked to the aisle between our rides, and that was when I saw the object of the girl’s attentions. Riding low on the man’s hip was a six shooter sitting in a leather holster with, I think, a DPS star pinned to it. I figured DPS because they have a big office near and I see their officers here often. Here in Texas we have concealed handgun laws but, thankfully, not yet an open carry rule. Thank god you have to be a lawman to carry a gun on your hip, and I wish to god we had smarter lawmen.
The little girl waited until the man’s attentions were focused on removing the boy from his arm, and struck. She grabbed the pistol with both hands and yanked it free of the leather. I don’t know if it wasn’t properly latched in the holster or if the tyke had great strength, but either way a four-year-old girl now had a loaded revolver.
I ducked—my natural response in these situations—and dumped my tots on the floor and started cussing about that. I heard the discussion about the retaking of the gun, scolding and placing the kids in the truck, but I didn’t register much of it because I was cussing. Then I realized as I was leaning over to pick tots off the floor, I dragged my shirt through catchup I had carefully placed on the console.
“Mo-ther fuck-er,” I said aloud but mostly to myself when I saw the front of my shirt.
“Hey, buddy,” a man’s voice said from outside my window. “You need to watch your mouth. This here’s a family restaurant.”
Huh?
I took a deep breath and exhaled onion and grilled beef before even looking at him. When I did look his way, his eyes widened and he stepped back with his hands in that “Oops, sorry” position. “You’re right… I’ll just be going now,” and he did.
Am I a shitbag magnet? Do I bring this sort of thing on myself? This asshole almost gets someone shot and he’s pissed at my language? I don’t usually cuss around kids but they don’t usually point a fucking revolver at me. Does a revolver even have a safety?
Good thing for him I promised the Squirt I’d not loose my shit with assholes this week.
Anyway, I got home from that bullshit to find the Squirt and Honor the fucking cat waiting for me in the driveway. I could tell we had a problem as soon as I saw them sitting there without Yoda at their side. When I got out of the car I asked them, “Hey, guys, where’s the third shitbird?”
“You need to do something about Yoda, and right fucking now!” Squirt stamped her foot on the “now” and finished with a prissy pout. “He’s locked in Gram’s potion cellar so we don’t kill him.”
Speaking of revolvers, I need to find my Revolver CD and spend some time with it. I need to hear Tomorrow Never Knows. Manana, y’all.
Oh, yea, and PS- Hannah from Whole Foods- check out February 17th.




