Sunday, January 21, 2001
Notes from a 24-hour gas station deli at 4:00 am
I approach the deli counter at the local 24-hour gas station deli and this guy is yelling into his cell phone. “Yea! I found his girlfriend and my girlfriend together! And guess what they had? Mayo and mustard. No, not the spicy mustard, the regular mustard.” That last bit to the deli worker, not to the person on the other end of the phone. He then resumes his conversation like nothing happened. “I swear! Next time she had better ask me before doing that…. I don't care if he allows it …” His sandwhich being finished, he wanders off to the counter.
Meanwhile three college age guys wander in, wearing khakis and black dress shirts. They grab some bags of chips and tear into them as they wander over to the deli counter. “I'm going to get some beer,” said one of the frat boys.
“I'm sorry,” said the clerk behind the counter. “No beer sales after two a.m.”
“What?” said the boisterous frat boy.
“We can't sell you beer.”
“Hey man!” said the frat boy. “I want beer. The cases are open! If you can't sell them then why aren't the cases locked?”
“Hey, Steve,” said one of his companions, munching away on chips. “Don't make any trouble; I'm hungry man! I want my sub.”
“Why do you mean you can't sell beer?”
“It's the law in Florida,” said the deli worker.
“Like how am I supposed to know?” said frat boy.
“You live in Florida, you are supposed to know.”
“Well I never heard of that!”
“Please Steve, let it go.”
“If you don't like it,” said the deli worker, “call and talk to the police.”
“What? Now you gonna call the police?”
“No, I said if you don't like the law, call the police and talk to them about it.”
“Man, I hate this state. All these foreigners who don't understand you. `Yes, I'd like four hamburgers. No, not eight, four!' God why did we ever come here?”
“Come on Steve, let's just get our sandwhiches and go.”
“I have to drink soda? God!”
Frat boys. Gotta love 'em.
The Bruno Daily Times
Bruno is one of the few strips I find good enough to read (on the Internet, much less in print) and in searching around, I came across an interview with Christopher Baldwin, the artist responsible for the strip.
Bruno would be wearing a “swoosh” right now if you'd signed that contract.
It was “$100,000 and we get all rights,” and that was the basic contract. And I said, “Well, I don't know if that's quite worth it.” And they said, “Well, you can keep doing the strip and putting it up on your page.” And I said, “For you?”
Update on Thursday, June 25TH, 2020
Updated the link.
