Michigan sausage

Recently, unlike my normally hard working self, I took advantage of the privilege token system here in Mitchieville and went to Montreal to use up a few of the many blue, red, orange, and green privilege tokens I had accumulated in my position as Minister of Re-Education. It was New Years. I jumped in the employee Mitchieville to Montreal shuttle (along with Sonjia DeSade, Reg from Internal Mail, and Trixie from Library Sciences). The Mayor is too cheap to pay for a driver, so we took turns driving, and filled the miles with conversation.



Reg from Internal Mail was very happy to be going to Montreal to cash in his horde of privilege tokens. His goal was to get some Michigan sausage from some place in Montreal called St.Catharines street. You can get Michigan sausage for a blue privilege token; Reg had five blue privilege tokens. We were only just crossing the Rouge River when Trixie suggested to Reg that she would give him the Michigan sausage experience for one of his green privilege tokens. He could keep his blue privilege tokens for the Montreal sausage industry. I was driving, so I did not see what was happening, but Reg seemed to enjoy his Michigan sausage. If you are a people watcher, you know the sounds people make when they are eating something tasty. You know even better if the people being watched do not know they are being watched, and I was driving, listening, and sort of watching (kinda like the glimpses you get through a window at night). I was driving.
Sonjia DeSade, being from Montreal herself, whispered in my ear, suggesting that I try Michigan sausage. Maybe it was watching Reg and Trixie have Michigan sausage in the back seat of the Mitchieville Community Shuttle that got her hungry. It is hard to control yourself, control your driving, while having Michigan sausage. It got a little messy, and I spilled some Michigan sausage sauce on the steering wheel. Do not tell the Mayor. He is too cheap to have the Community Shuttle cleaned regularly, so it regularly comes back from these Montreal 'Blue Privilege Token' weekends sloppy on the inside from Michigan sausage sauce. We lie to him, and tell him it is spilt baby food, or that someone was eating out of a can of salmon, or something. Sonjia did not want one of my privilege tokens for the Michigan sausage. I have a gym bag full of them, anyway. She was just being companionable. Sonjia has quite a few privilege tokens of her own, anyway, but not as many as Trixie.

Passing through Kingston, the topic of conversation turned to Spicy Rice. It was not quite what I thought 'Spicy Rice' would normally mean *, but, if you think about it, Spicy Rice is an apt description as Michigan sausage. What does Spicy Rice mean to you? To Reg in internal Mail, Spicy Rice is worth a blue privilege token (just like Michigan sausage) but not quite road food. Trixie offered Reg some Spicy Rice, much as she had offered him some Michigan sausage, but Reg demurred. You can make do with Michigan Sausage as road food, but Spicy Rice was table food, something to be got with a roof over your head. I guess it was like comparing a blow job from an alley crack whore to an evening with some tart with teeth, sheets, and corsets that match her boots. Sometimes you only have time for the crack whore, like the Mayor does at lunch on golfing Wednesdays. Such is metaphor.

Everyone had a different recipe for Spicy Rice. We all agreed that cucumbers had no part, no contribution ... which lead to a round of jokes about progressives, as most any mention of cucumbers really brings to mind the inappropriate uses that progressives find for things, ideas, and vegetables. I think Reg from Internal Mail was thinking a lot about Spicy Rice, and Trixie's offer of Spicy Rice in the car, in the backseat of the Community Shuttle, for a green privilege token was wearing down his sales resistance. We pulled over for fuel, a change of drivers, and everyone's mind got off the pleasures of Montreal, at least for a little while.

We were working on a radio play about some loser named what's his name. Sonjia had his divorce proceedings and is using them to put together a script. It is all very Hollywood in the 1950's, this using someones divorce papers to churn out a radio play. Of course, we all started joking about cucumbers. The radio play is to go out on the Mitchieville shortwave radio feed on Valentines Day. What's his name is not a very interesting guy, unless you find 21st century crypto-queers interesting, but humiliating him is a very popular thing to do on short wave radio. It is a fad, these pop sensations come and go, much as penicillin vexes clap. After laughing long and hard, we started talking about normal stuff again, as a tonic, much as a stalker, after an evening of watching through bathroom windows, dresses up as a lawyer and goes to work in the morning. What could be more normal than Spicy Rice?

Everyone has a different recipe for Spicy Rice. I like my own version best, even if what Sonjia DeSade whispered into my ears was pretty tempting. As for Reg and Trixie, they started to play the Bunny Rabbit and Teddy Bear game. It was getting dark, and I had to navigate us through the outskirts of Montreal.

Reg and Trixie were spending the night at the Pleasure Center, whereas Sonjia was taking me to visit with her family out in Saint Somewhere. These Quebecois have never really caught the Calvinist spirit and need Oliver Cromwell in their lives; Duplessis would be a good start. Sonjia shushed me when I started talking about Duplessis: she wanted to talk about Spicy Rice.

Such are road trips. You talk about things. You make plans. You gather resources. Even as the world sinks into unsustainable government debt, take the time to travel with friends and family.