Newest Xmastime Series: I Eat This Shit So You Don't Have to.

LOCATION: 7-11
FOOD: Pizza

Yesterday I was in Ridgewood, Queens; or as I call it, "somewhere a thousand miles away in Middle America."  In other words, there was a 7-11 there, and since I'm a real American I couldn't go by without walking in and getting some 7-11 "foodstuffs."  My standard go-to is of course the Buffalo Chicken taquito.  Years ago Brothatime!! lived down the block from a 7-11, and whenever I'd visit I'd make a big show of "well, I'm gonna go for a walk...need anything?  Milk for the baby?  No? Okay, see ya in a bit" and then sprint to 7-11 and inhale  2  3  4  a taquito.  So I order one yesterday, and found myself staring at the slice of pepperoni pizza rotating in that concentration camp death over-heating thing they have, and something compelled me to buy it.  I'd never had 7-11 pizza before, and I was aware that it was probably bad enough fresh, much less having sat around so long as to be the last piece selected which, for all I knew, was a month.

I must say.  I was beyond pleasantly surprised.  It being edible was the first surprise.  But then I realized that besides just the regular pepperoni you'd have on a slice, it was filled with those tiny, diced chunks of pepperoni I remember from school lunch pizza.   You know, that strange mix of cardboard and processed  glue  cheese that for some reason made kids line up out the door to get a slice of?  Lunchbags would be left home for the day, friends would be offered free slices to show up early and hold spots in line, etc etc.  All for what, looking back, probably shaved years off our lives.  Really, it was camping out all night for Beatles tickets, and then looking back two decades later and realizing you'd seen The Backstreet Boys.

You're not gonna sit around the campfire writing country-western songs about it, but at $1.29 a slice, you can do a lot worse.  I've had worse "real" NYC slices, and for more than 2x the price.