The Chuck Box – Tempe, Arizona

“I’ll have the great big one,” the barrel-chested behemoth behind me chortled.  One of his companions, a bookish nerd followed up with “I’ll have the big one.”  Not to be outdone, several male Arizona State University (ASU) students took turns ordering either the “great big one” or the “big one.”  Each order was followed by raucous laughter as if they were the first students ever to place their orders for burgers named for their respective sizes (the burgers, not the students’ manhood).  Not one of them dared ask for “the little one” for fear of being humiliated or even ostracized by their fellows.  “What a brilliant marketing strategy!,” I thought as I, too, ordered a “great big one” even though…

The Post Chicken & Beer – Estes Park, Colorado

In 1974 prolific author Stephen King and his wife Tabitha spent a night in Room 217 of The Stanley, a a 140-room Colonial Revival hotel in Estes Park, about five miles from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.  The hotel staff was preparing to close the hotel for the season so the Kings found themselves the only guests in the place.  King wrote about the experience on his website: “Wandering through its corridors, I thought that it seemed the perfect—maybe the archetypical—setting for a ghost story. That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous…

ABQ Burrito – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Perhaps the only good thing that came from the Cabrona Virus was that many of us get to work from home.  Otherwise, the cost of commuting to work in this “build back better” economy would probably approach our meager wages.  Though not commuting to work spares us from cashing in our 4.1Ks in order to purchase fuel for our gas guzzlers, there are still times when we have to drive somewhere.  Like when we have to visit Albertson’s or Smith’s to scour the half-empty shelves for luxury items such as baby formula.   With “Putin’s inflation” making gas virtually unaffordable, budget-conscious consumers are desperate for alternatives to the land yachts we drive.  We’re walking to the mailbox instead of backing…