Posted on by Phil Strawn

The End Is Near


Well, dear hearts, it’s official: another Polar Vortex will be in Texas by Sunday night, about the same time the Dallas Cowboys kickoff against whoever in the hell they are playing for whatever, something, or another position in the NFL universe. I’m very over my former home team. My son, Wes, the rabid family Cowboy fan, is coming in from Corpus Christi for the big game and is taking an entourage of family and friends to the game: he owns seats at the Death Star, and instead of selling them for enough to retire on, he actually attends games, pays $18.00 for a BBQ sandwich, $20.00 for a warm beer, and $150.00 to park, and then walks two miles to the stadium. I watch it on TV and enjoy my own food and my Barc-o-lounger. He’s young and has the stamina and the chutzpah.

We do experience winter in this part of Texas, but damn, in 2021, we had ice and single digits for a week: Momo and I were stranded in our hilly community and were cooking frozen wieners over the butane firepit.

This cold snap, as we call it in Texas, will be about the same. H.E.B. was a crazy town today: No baskets, people snarling and slugging each other over a loaf of Mrs. Baird’s bread, and then, I ran into my buddy Mooch at the frozen pizza case. There he stood, fifty or so Red Baron Frozen Pizzas in his cart, thirty bags of Pork Rinds, and two cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. He is ready for the apocalypse. A young boy, around the age of six, stood staring at his cart. Mooch had taken all of the Red Baron Pizzas, and it was obvious that they were also the kid’s favorite. Mooch is a gruff old fart, but that little boy, staring at him with those Puss-In-Boots watery eyes, broke the man down. He handed the kid a twenty dollar bill and told him to go buy some Paul Newman’s Pizzas. What a humanitarian. The kid took the bill, gave him the finger, and took off to find his momma.

Momo paid an old lady some cash for her empty cart and loaded the baby up with milk, what was left of the bread, some produce, a few Boston Market Pot Pies, yogurt, eggs, ground turkey, ground Chipmunk, Ostrich steaks, Emu-On-A-Stick, bacon wrapped jalapenos, bacon wrapped Gerbils, bacon wrapped chicken wings, smoked cheese, smoked smokies, aged corn beef hash, Betty Crocker Elf Cookies, ten bags of tater chips, two cases of ginger-ale, three bottles of wine, a dozen jars of Ovaltine, Terlingua Chili Mix, three dozen cans of Tomato soup and a large bottle of Tums. We are ready for the Vortex, so bring that Canadian baby on. The “Police” patrolled the aisles to keep the peace, and I thought I saw “Sting” over by the deli counter signing autographs; there is a rumor he now lives in Granbury with his crazed wife and their fourteen children.

I’ll keep my Cactus Patch pals appraised of our survival as the weather deteriorates. If you don’t hear from me by Tuesday, you know Momo and I didn’t make the cut.

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17 Replies to “The End Is Near”

  3. H.E.B. huh? We can’t get osterich (or ostrich) here. I may have to sojourn to DFW environs to get some. Take the opportunity to see how the area around Carswell has changed. Maybe visit the Farmer’s Daughter Club – it still there? Do you know of it? Is my fogy grey thinking instead of OKC?

    Say, do you know of any issues getting osterich (or ostrich) through TSA?

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    1. Not sure about Ostrich, but I hear Kroger is carrying “Big Bird” steaks. The area around Carswell has gone to hell in a basket, section 8 housing, high crime and all that goes with it. I don’t know of that particular club, but I do know they still have an officers club on site. We see fighter jets coming over our house daily, and we live 40 miles from Carswell. H.E.B. is our righteous local Texas super grocery store based out of San Antonio, Texas. I’ve lived all over the country and there is no better grocery.

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      1. Here’s an inside secret. In most of Texas, when you buy Mrs. Baird bread, it’s from an HEB bakery (SA, Houston, Corpus: the original). Same bread off the same line. They just load it up with Mrs. Baird sacks. HEB is less expensive. Hill Country Fair is the least expensive. We tend to buy sourdough or some other fancy bread Dodie picks out straight from the bakery & have them cut it into slices there.

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      2. I didn’t know that secret. We buy HEB bread in the plastic as well as the bakery $1.00 bread. Found a bakery shop in Granbury called Baked, and they have awesome baked fresh breads. I used to go to the Mrs. Bairds Bakery on the West Freeway in Ft. Worth when I was a youngster. At Christmas, there was a Santa in a large sled with real reindeer attached, well they could have been Boro’s with fake horns, but my memory is fuzzy. Small women dressed as elves would hand out warm rolls with butter to keep us kids warmed up. It was quite an experience, and I don’t know how talking about bread came to this. We are having fresh baked Sourdough with expensive cheese, salami, grapes and wine tonight for supper. “Let them eat regular bread!”

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      3. Our elementary school fields included a trip to the Buttercrust Bakery. As I read your response, the taste of that butter toasted fresh bread came to my mind. Now I can’t get it out of my mind!

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    1. Yep, me too, but Momo mixes her whiskey with the ginger ale. I’m the wine drinker around this place, but can’t tell a $100 bottle from a $10 bottle. Thanks for chiming in.

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