Beef Jerky Quotes

Iggy: "I'll grab a zebra; Gaz, you fill all the bubbles with your trademark scent. so people are choking and gagging; and let's throw beef jerky in their eyes! Now, that's a plan!

It wasn't exactly like talking, but it went something like this: Could you give us a ride north, Percy asked, like as close to Portland as possible? Eat seals, the whale responded. Are you seals? No, Percy admitted. I've got a man satchel full of macrobiotic beef jerky, though. The whale shuddered. Promise not to feed me this, and I will take you north. Deal.

Kaia darling, Willaim said, nearly leaping over a stand of beef jerky in his haste to reach her. Are you here to fight the strippers who just enjoyed hours of my company? Hardly, she said, tossing her glorious mane of hair over her shoulder with a single flip of her wrist. I'm here to thank them for keeping you occupied. Please tell me they're still with you.

Champagne was discovered by a Catholic monk," said Bernard. "Took one swallow and burst out of his cellar yelling, 'I'm drinking stars, I'm drinking stars!' Tequila was invented by a bunch of brooding Indians. Into human sacrifice and pyramids. Somewhere between champagne and tequila is the secret history of Mexico, just as somewhere between beef jerky and Hostess Twinkies is the secret history of America. Or aren't you in the mood for epigrams?

I was stealing salt shakers again. Ten, sometimes twelve a night, shoving them up my sleeves, smuggling them out of bars and diners and anywhere else I could find them. In the morning, wherever I woke up, I was always covered in salt. I was cured meat. I had become beef jerky. Even as a small child, I knew it would one day come to this.

Why do you watch TV shows — and keep watching them — if you don't like them?" Terence asked. Simple: Some days, all you have is gazing upon horror, and the small comfort of being surprised that it is not yours.

Weeks passed, but my Word-A-Day Calendar was stuck on "motherfucker.

We Anhedonians have adapted to long periods between good news. Our national animal is the hope camel. We have no national bird. All the birds are dead.

I'd never been much of an athlete, due to a physical condition I'd had since birth (unathleticism). Perhaps if there were a sport centered around lying on your couch in a neurotic stupor all day, I'd take an interest.

As it often did when I thought about chicken wings and entropy, my mind turned to Emerson. "Life is a journey, not a destination." Now that was one stone-cold motherfucker who was not afraid to deliver the truth: After the torments of the journey, you have been well-prepared for the agonies of the destination.

I eat beef jerky and ride with bare feet on the dashboard. We

Dear Mr. Gibbon. Sorry I was absent. Here is some salted food. Please grade it the way you would a jenti piece of beef jerky.

PERCY ALREADY FELT LIKE THE lamest demigod in the history of lame. The purse was the final insult. They’d left R.O.F.L. in a hurry, so maybe Iris hadn’t meant the bag as a criticism. She’d quickly stuffed it with vitamin-enriched pastries, dried fruit leather, macrobiotic beef jerky, and a few crystals for good luck. Then she’d shoved it at Percy: Here, you’ll need this. Oh, that looks good. The purse—sorry, masculine accessory bag—was rainbow tie-dyed with a peace symbol stitched in wooden beads and the slogan Hug the Whole World. Percy wished it said Hug the Commode. He felt like the bag was a comment on his massive, incredible uselessness. As they sailed north, he put the man satchel as far away from him as he could, but the boat was small.

I have to pause the video while I corral the dogs in the other room. They howl in protest, and I tell them they are harshing my mellow and Yogi Beef Jerky’s going to be pissed." Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest To Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, Or Why Pie is Not The Answer

Newel and Doren had inexhaustibly consumed milkshakes, burgers, sandwiches, tacos, nachos, pretzels, nuts, beef jerky, trail mix, soda, doughnuts, candy bars, cookies, crackers, and aerosol cheese. Of the fifty most impressive belches Seth had witnessed in his life, all had occurred on this road trip.

Newel and Doren had inexhaustibly consumed milkshakes, burgers, sandwiches, tacos, nachos, pretzels, nuts, beef jerky, trail mix, soda, doughnuts, candy bars, cookies, crackers, and aerosol cheese. Of the fifty most impressive belches Seth had witnessed in his life, all had occurred on this road trip. “I hate to interrupt the feasting,” Vanessa said, “but we did come here for a purpose. Let’s try to focus on something besides sweet fat and salty fat for the next little while.” “Some of us have fast metabolisms,” Doren mumbled. “We just want fuel in the tank before we risk our necks,” Newel complained.

I have a good poker face because I am half dead inside.

Suck it, Entropy. We have an appointment, my old friend, but not today.

I feel about my phone the way horror-movie ventriloquists feel about their dummies: It's smarter than me, better than me, and I will kill anyone who comes between us.

Well, imagine you are alone in a room....Are you the best, most special person in the room right now? Yes. That's the gift of being alone.

You are a soulless monster whose fright mask is incapable of capturing human expressions.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, because in the end, whatever goes down, whatever you get up to, your triumphs and transgressions, nobody actually understands what it means except for you.

Dr. Bone Specialist came in, made me stand up and hobble across the room, checked my reflexes, and then made me lie down on the table. He bent my right knee this way and that, up and down, all the way out to the side and in. Then he did the same with my left leg. He ordered X rays then started to leave the room. I panicked. I MUST GET DRUGS. "What can I take for the pain?" I asked him before he got out the door. "You can take some over the counter ibuprofen," he suggested. "But I wouldn't take more than nine a day." I choked. Nine a day? I'd been popping forty. Nine a day? Like hell. I couldn't even go to the bathroom on my own, I hadn't slept in three weeks, and my normally sunny cheery disposition had turned into that of a very rabid dog. If I didn't get good drugs and get them now, it was straight to Shooter's World and then Walgreens pharmacy for me. "I don't think you understand," I explained. "I can't go to work. I have spent the last four days with my mother who is addicted to QVC, watching jewelry shows, doll shows and make-up shows. I almost ordered a beef-jerky maker! Give me something, or I'm going to use your calf muscles to make the first batch!" Without further ado, he hastily scribbled out a prescription for some codeine and was gone. I was happy. My mother, however, had lost the ability to speak.

Spoiler: I didn't win the Main Event. You had suspicions, you say? For one thing, the subtitle of this book would be "The Amazing Life-Affirming Story of an Unremarkable Jerk Who Won the World Series of Poker!" instead of having the word "Death" in it. For another, do these sound like the words of a motherfucker who won a million goddamn dollars?

Pick your fights like you pick your nose: with complete awareness of where you are.

Sanctimony and self-regard are as American as smallpox blankets and supersize meals.

They don't give gold bracelets for regrets.

Here's a tip for new parents: Start lowering those expectations early, it's going to pay off later.

What's wrong with Disneyland? It brings joy to millions and tutors children about the corporate, overbranded world they've been born into.

It's not very rigorous to seek out, and prize, relatability. But it can calm you down. And like expensive beef jerky, this was something I thought I'd earned.

I’ve got a man satchel full of macrobiotic beef jerky, though. The whale shuddered. Promise not to feed me this, and I will take you north.

The mere fact of Vegas, its necessity, was an indictment of our normal lives. If we needed this place--to transform into a high roller or a sexy swinger, to be someone else, a winner for once--then certainly the world beyond the desert was a small and mealy place indeed.

Was it counterintuitive to apply lessons from a women's self-defense book to the World Series of Poker? Yes. But if modernity has taught us anything, it's that you don't fuck with Oprah.

One of my dinner companions invited me on a strip-club excursion. I demurred, spoiled by the erotic revues of Anhedonia, where the performers remain fully clothed but get emotionally naked, delivering monologues about their top-shelf disappointments, and times when they were almost happy. Hard to enjoy American-style strip clubs after that. Once you go bleak, you never go back.

There was one moment of intersection, when the topic of hate-watching came up. "Why do you watch TV shows--and keep watching them--if you don't like them?" Terrence asked. Simple: Some days, all you have is gazing upon horror, and the small comfort of being surprised that it is not yours.

Cowgirl Interlude (Bonanza Jellybean) She is lying on the family sofa in flannel pajamas. There is Kansas City mud on the tips and heels of her boots, boots that have yet to savor real manure. Fourteen, she knows she ought to remove her boots, yet she refuses. A Maverick rerun is on TV; she is eating beef jerky, occasionally slurping. On her upper stomach, where her pajama top has ridden up, is a small deep scar. She tells everyone, including her school nurse, that it was made by a silver bullet. Whatever the origin of the extra hole in her belly, there are unmistakable signs of gunfire int he woodwork by the closet door. It was there that she once shot up one half of an old pair of sneakers. "Self-defense," she pleaded, when her parents complained. "It was a [sic] out-law tennis shoe. Billy the Ked.

Social media wasn't usually my thing, as it had the word "social" in it, but I'd taken to the platform after a personal tragedy. I had a cat, the cat died, and now what I used to say to my cat all day, I tweeted. It helped that 140 characters was roughly my preferred limit when it came to human interaction.

As it happens, the first souvenir I bought was a dried llama fetus. Revolting as it may sound, my poor stillborn llama is actually rather cute. Frozen in the fetal position and dried stiff like beef jerky, it has the gentle, smiling face of a camel and plenty of soft, if slightly formaldehyde-scented, fur. I bought the llama fetus partly because it horrified me, but also for educational purposes, so that my eight-year-old daughter Sophia could show it to her class. (She refused.) Bolivians buy llama fetuses to ward off evil in its many guises. Bolivian miners—who, with a life expectancy of forty-five years, basically live their entire adult lives dying—look to llama fetuses for protection against dynamite explosions and the lung-destroying silicon particulates they inhale all day. Downing high-proof alcohol also helps. “The purer the alcohol, the purer the minerals I find,” one miner told me wryly.

He’s fine,” I clipped. “So are you.” The driver grinned. “I’m going to smoke your eyes like beef jerky if you as much as look at her that way again,” Chase groaned. It was the first time he’d spoken since we’d gotten in the car.

I stared at the words. They stared back. Then they waved and smiled and shrugged—like, We’ll be keeping you company for a while, so you might as well invite us in so we can give you cankles, and cravings for beef jerky and pickles dipped in mustard. I wanted to push those words off a cliff

Our government disdains a risk-reward game that millions of Americans play,” Matt wrote, “then bails out Wall Street sharks who bet unfathomable sums. I can only conclude that this contradictory stance has little to do with the skills required for each pursuit. No, for some reason, lawmakers just don’t like poker.

This is my emergency kit. It contained a roll of duct tape, a spare pair of pants, an envelope with two hundred dollars, two bags of dried fruit, two packages of beef jerky, three bottles of water, a roll of thick shop towels you see mechanics use, a small metal pipe - just right for cracking a skull with - and a fake beard. Look, you never know.

Lesson: If you’re going to view blinds as taxes, be a Republican about them.

Whoever has the better stuff wins. Sound familiar, American lackeys of late-stage capitalism?

...sometimes good fortune is just having fewer messed-up things happening to you.

I was a skinny guy, but I was morbidly obese with doom.

I contain multitudes, most of them flawed.

At that point the microorganisms ask themselves, what’s the point of living anymore? Then they die.

I didn't have illusions about being one of the November Nine. We live in an age in which sitcoms outnumber miracles, and perhaps that is what we deserve.

Memory is the past with volume control.

After a few hands, I realized he was talking about me. The dismissive gesture in my direction tipped me off. I hadn't been glared at with such hate by two people since couples therapy.

We go solo, my kinfolk and I, taking each day as an IKEA bookcase we build alone, sans instructions. The leftover pieces? We gobble them down, and sometimes it's the only thing we eat all day.

...it was time to get out of what Coach called "small-stack mentality." I no longer had to play like I was trying to escape the space station before it self-destructed, as the chirpy computer voice counted down.

To build a House of Jerky is to triumph against the odds, to construct a nitrate-filled monument to possibility and individual perseverance. Dexter Choi was an outlaw. He faced down fate and flopped a full house.

Cold liquid splashing across his face brought Kevin Temple back to himself. He’d been on the road all night, a dedicated run from Indiana hauling a load of fresh vegetables. Fifteen minutes out of the depot in Cleveland, and he had that stale feel, too much coffee washing down too much beef jerky. What he’d really been craving was a double cheeseburger, but while it would surprise no one to see a trucker gone flabby around

It is especially critical that you avoid processed meats such as frankfurters, bologna, salami, lunch meat, beef jerky, smoked fish, bacon, sausage, ham, pepperoni, SPAM and others that are preserved with nitrites. Why? Because this chemical is a potent anti-immunity, cancer-causing chemical. When possible, reach for meats that are nitrite-free, which does include certain brands of hot dogs, bacon, sausage and ham among others.

I can't help it if I understand that everything tends to ruin. Over our heads, Skylab is eternally falling down, I can see it all, the debris raining without cessation. I was a skinny guy, but I was morbidly obese with doom.

HOLLYWOODING: Using all your years of deceiving others to put on a show at the table. Ever said, “Cute baby,” about some newborn who’d found a portal between their Hell Dimension and our world? You may have a career in poker.

Polyvinyl Alcohol This is the “pod” itself, a plasticlike membrane that holds the other ingredients in a jolly candylike form. (Reportedly, it’s so candylike that hundreds of kids have attempted to eat these and wound up with a gob full of detergent.)

I would represent my country, the Republic of Anhedonia. We have no borders, but the population teems. No one has deigned to write down our history, but we are an ancient land, founded during the original disappointments, when the first person met another person.

As it turned out, one aspect of my personality would help me in my odyssey: I was a bider. Temperamentally suited to hold out for good cards, well accustomed to waiting. We Anhedonians have adapted to long periods between good news. Our national animal is the hope camel. We have no national bird. All the birds are dead.

I wrote two five-page short stories, two five-page epics, to audition for my college's creative writing workshops, and was turned down both times. I was crushed, but in retrospect it was perfect training for being a writer. You can keep ‘write what you know’—for a true apprenticeship, internalize the world’s indifference and accept rejection and failure into your very soul.

FAT FREE, NONFAT, LOW FAT, LIGHT Only in the bizarro world of food labeling can the terms “fat free,” “zero fat,” “no fat,” and “without fat” not necessarily mean that the product in fact has zero grams of fat. In the world according to the FDA, “zero” means anything from actually zero all the way up to half a gram. By this outlandish arithmetic, four servings of “zero fat” food can actually contain close to two grams of fat.

Poker eminence Doyle Brunson called Hold'em “the Cadillac of poker,” and I was only qualified to steer a Segway. In one of the fiction-writing manuals, it says that there are only two stories: a hero goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. I don't know. This being life, and not literature, we'll have to make do with this: A middle-aged man, already bowing and half broken under his psychic burdens, decides to take on the stress of being one of the most unqualified players in the history of the Big Game. A hapless loser goes on a journey, a strange man comes to gamble.

Well, imagine you are alone in a room. The lights are down low, you’ve got some scented candles going. Soothing New Age tunes, nothing too druid-chanty, seep out of the hi-fi to gently massage your cerebral cortex. Feel good? Are you the best, most special person in the room right now? Yes. That’s the gift of being alone. Then a bozo in a CAT Diesel Power cap barges in. What’s the chance that you are the best, most special person in the room now? Fifty-fifty. If you both were dealt two cards, those would be your odds of holding the winning hand. Now imagine ten people are in the room. It’s cramped. You’re elbow to elbow, aerosolized dandruff floats in the air, and the candle’s lavender scent is complicated by BO tones, with a tuna sandwich finish. What are the chances you’re the best, most special person in the room? If you were handed cards, you might expect to be crowned one time out of ten. People, as ever, are the problem. The more people there are, the tougher you have it. Just by sitting next to you, they fuck you up, as if life were nothing more than a bus ride to hell (which it is). But what if you moved to another seat? Changed position? Your seat is everything. It can give you room to relax, to contemplate your next move. Or it might instigate your unraveling.

Owen couldn’t believe his luck. Candice Mayfair was the beautiful white wolf he’d seen that day so long ago. Not that she looked like a wolf right now. He only knew she was the wolf, unequivocally, because he recognized her scent. After the initial shock of seeing an unfamiliar and intriguing Arctic she-wolf, he’d gone after her. The whole pack had gone on a run that night, but they knew to stay far away from any campsite. He and the other guys had swum across the river to explore a bit. Cameron and his mate had stayed on the other side with the kids. He’d even swum back across the river to find her and discovered her scent had led right to one of the tents. Since she had moved into the tent, he knew she had to be one of their shifter kind. He’d even hung around the next day, waiting to catch a glimpse of her, but there were several women, and he had no idea which one had been her. Two blonds, a couple of brunettes, and a red-haired woman—none of whom looked like the picture he had of Clara Hart, though. Being a white wolf in summer had made it difficult to blend in, so he’d had to keep well out of sight. Candice Mayfair was definitely the author of the books on the website, though she didn’t look like the photo her uncle had of her, if she was Clara Hart. She had the same compelling eyes, different color, but they got his attention, grabbed hold, and wouldn’t let go. He carried her to her couch and set her down, staying close, his hand still on her arm until she seemed to regain her equilibrium. “The wolf pup was yours,” she accused, jerking her arm away from him. “Wolf pup?” “Yeah, wolf pup. Don’t pretend you don’t know about your own wolf pup.” Then all the pieces began to fall into place. Campers. Campfire. Food. Corey, the wolf pup she had to be referring to, hadn’t just found the food like they’d thought. Candice must not have been a wolf until that night. “You fed him? Corey? His mom wondered why he smelled of beef jerky that night. We thought he’d found some at the campsite. Don’t tell me…he bit you.

The day-to-day horror of writing gave me a notion of tournament time. Writing novels is tedious. When will this book be finished, when will it reveal its bright and shining true self? it takes freakin’ years. At the poker table, you’re only playing a fraction of the hands, waiting for your shot. If you keep your wits, can keep from flying apart while those around you are self-destructing, devouring each other, you’re halfway there. … Let them flame out while you develop a new relationship with time, and they drift away from the table. 86-7 Coach Helen’s mantra: It’s OK to be scared, but don’t play scared. 90 [During a young adult trip to Los Vegas] I was contemplating the nickel in my hand. Before we pushed open the glass doors, what the heck, I dropped it into a one-armed bandit and won two dollars. In a dank utility room deep in the subbasements of my personality, a little man wiped his hands on his overalls and pulled the switch: More. Remembering it now, I hear a sizzling sound, like meat being thrown into a hot skillet. I didn't do risk, generally. So I thought. But I see now I'd been testing the House Rules the last few years. I'd always been a goody-goody. Study hard, obey your parents, hut-hut-hut through the training exercises of Decent Society. Then in college, now that no one was around, I started to push the boundaries, a little more each semester. I was an empty seat in lecture halls, slept late in a depressive funk, handed in term papers later and later to see how much I could get away with before the House swatted me down. Push it some more. We go to casinos to tell the everyday world that we will not submit. There are rules and codes and institutions, yes, but for a few hours in this temple of pure chaos, of random cards and inscrutable dice, we are in control of our fates. My little gambles were a way of pretending that no one was the boss of me. … The nickels poured into the basin, sweet music. If it worked once, it will work again. We hit the street. 106-8 [Matt Matros, 3x bracelet winner; wrote The Making of a Poker Player]: “One way or another you’re going to have a read, and you’re going to do something that you didn’t expect you were going to do before, right or wrong. Obviously it’s better if you’re right, but even if you’re wrong, it can be really satisfying to just have a read, a feeling, and go with it. Your gut.” I could play it safe, or I could really play. 180 Early on, you wanted to stay cool and keep out of expensive confrontations, but you also needed to feed the stack. The stack is hungry. 187 The awful knowledge that you did what you set out to do, and you would never, ever top it. It was gone the instant you put your hands on it. It was gambling. 224

Q: What do you call an epileptic cow? A: Beef jerky.

BEEF STRIPS FROM THE BACKPACK Katniss finds beef jerky in the backpack that she grabs at the beginning of the 74th Hunger Games. This dried meat reinforces the fact that Katniss hasn’t been able to find any water and feels pretty dried up herself. (The Hunger Games, Chapter 11) Yields

Whoever orders chicken cordon bleu at Chonchy Joe’s Gasoline and Beef Jerky Emporium is asking for the intestinal challenge that they will soon face.

Thank God it wasn’t beef jerky, or I might’ve ended up dead." "The President's Neighbor" a comedy script by Brett Bacon.

Eat seals, the whale responded. Are you seals? No, Percy admitted. I’ve got a man satchel full of macrobiotic beef jerky, though. The whale shuddered. Promise not to feed me this, and I will take you north. Deal.

Kis for Knowledge. Unlike the old saying, what you don’t know will hurt you. You’ve got to acquire new knowledge. I don’t give you much chance for success after surgery if you rely on the same old information. If you continue to think that beef jerky is a good snack, then I foresee weight struggles in your future. If you keep hoping that “low fat” or “fat-free” will make you healthy, I only see more disappointments headed your way. You have to read new and better books, watch better TV programs, hang out with better people who will inspire you. You have to take the classes, learn new skills, and challenge yourself to be better.

Sighing, I trotted out onto the field and took up position on the special teams unit. Max saw me and hurried over, looking alarmed. “You’re playing?” “Theoretically.” He patted my arm. “Go get ’em.” “Right.” I looked at the opposing line. Taj was there, eyeing me like I was a piece of beef jerky. Our returner, a superfast, stocky kid named Pete, was waiting at the far end of the field. I just had to run around the line, get down there, and tackle him. No problem. I fidgeted nervously, waiting for the snap. I missed the bench already. “Hut!” the punter shouted, and our long snapper tossed it back to him. I took the long way around the line, just missing an arm bar from Taj. I really wasn’t very fast, but I wasn’t slow either. I made it around the defensive line and started for Pete, who was already

down too much beef jerky. What he’d really been

I know I briefly mentioned them previously, but these are some of my favorite go-to snack ideas: 1. Quality beef jerky 2. Hard boiled eggs 3. Veggie sticks 4. Tuna and veggies 5. Almond butter and apple 6.   Nut mixes (be sure to practice portion control) 7. Chicken breast 8. Cubed sweet potato with spices 9.   Canned pumpkin, vanilla protein powder, sliced almonds, chia seeds, and cinnamon (this is lower fat but stays pretty low-carb too, thanks to the pumpkin)

had that stale feel, too much coffee washing down too much beef jerky. What he’d really been craving was a double cheeseburger, but while it would surprise no one to see a trucker gone flabby around the middle, it was a point of pride that at thirty-nine he

I might die from a bear attack; I could also succumb to a rattlesnake or a puma, slip down a rocky ravine, have a tree branch fall on my head, choke on beef jerky, or any other of a million unanticipated disasters. That's the thrill of backcountry exploration. My vulnerability is exquisite. If I don't watch out for me, no one else will.

The combination of long-expired beef jerky and ten cans of Coors were likely responsible for the upheaval in his bowels.

The woman must drink bong water for breakfast and probably made beef jerky out of Don Lewis for lunch.

A killer whale surfaced next to the boat, and Percy struck up a mental conversation with him. It wasn’t exactly like talking, but it went something like this: Could you give us a ride north, Percy asked, like as close to Portland as possible? Eat seals, the whale responded. Are you seals? No, Percy admitted. I’ve got a man satchel full of macrobiotic beef jerky, though. The whale shuddered. Promise not to feed me this, and I will take you north. Deal.

Sweet potato. Mashed yams covered in beef jerky. French bread. Butter. A warm bowl of couscous. It's like she's trying to feed an army. "I'm not very hungry," I say. "It's not like you to refuse breakfast," she says with a wink. And my heart stops, because Mom winks just like Grandma used to. "And you barely ate last night. You need sustenance." I join her at the counter, trying not to think about how without a third stool at the center to balance our family out, the counter feels much wider than it is. Our breakfast begins quietly, just the hum of the fridge in the background. I add butter to my yams, and the spoonful melts in my mouth, warming me up from inside out. I scoop up the little cuts of beef jerky individually, leftover from last night, chewing on them with my eyes closed. I let the salty flavor spread over my taste buds to wake them up one by one. I then pull my bowl of milk couscous closer, breathing in the cinnamon-fragrant steam.

Yet he finds himself treading into the beast’s lair with a beef pinned on his back, and jerky lining his pockets.

The man seated at the table looked to be made of beef jerky and snow-white hair, with very little else.

I know some people think I'm tough as old beef jerky, but truth is, I'd seen too many living things disappear in the hard struggle for life here. I wasn't about to let the buffalo go, too.

Hi, Kathleen. You know, when I heard the words ‘flour bomb’ I had a feeling I might see you.” He caught sight of Hercules. “And you,” he said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out half a piece of beef jerky. The cat’s eyes lit up.

The people of Baileyville were descended from Celts, from Scots and Irish families, who could hold on to resentment until it was dried out like beef jerky, and bearing no resemblance to its original self.

No Throat So Deep by Stewart Stafford “I'd like you to meet Mrs Koch-Gobbelaar,” I weighed up the overture long and hard, "I'm licking my lips without drool!" I replied, “Amazeballs!” he said, “Tonight, you'll meet.” We came early, but she didn’t take umbrage, “Spread out all over my ballroom,” she said, She told us how the rooms were hanging, Up the elevator shaft to the top floor and left. Mrs Koch-Gobbelaar made vegetarian claims, But we found her smuggled stash of beef jerky, Her ex-husband split and became a eunuch, He died bone-tired with limp alibis on his urn. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

Max was standing in the middle of the rows of shelves, looking at bags of beef jerky. Why don’t you tell him to go buy his own cow? her inner voice demanded snidely.

Oh man, a six pack of soda—five dollars, bag of beef jerky—six dollars, scaring the living shit out of your best friend—priceless,

It wasn’t exactly like talking, but it went something like this: Could you give us a ride north, Percy asked, like as close to Portland as possible? Eat seals, the whale responded. Are you seals? No, Percy admitted. I’ve got a man satchel full of macrobiotic beef jerky, though. The whale shuddered. Promise not to feed me this, and I will take you north. Deal.

Our world is beautiful.

Every time the satyrs had spotted a fast food joint that they recognized from a commercial, they had hollered for a meal break. Vanessa had not always conceded, but whenever an opportunity was presented, Newel and Doren had inexhaustibly consumed milkshakes, burgers, sandwiches, tacos, nachos, pretzels, nuts, beef jerky, trail mix, soda, doughnuts, candy bars, cookies, crackers, and aerosol cheese. Of the fifty most impressive belches Seth had witnessed in his life, all had occurred on this road trip. “I

beef jerky (sold loose in liquor stores)

He’d been on the road all night, a dedicated run from Indiana hauling a load of fresh vegetables. Fifteen minutes out of the depot in Cleveland, and he had that stale feel, too much coffee washing down too much beef jerky. What he’d really been craving was a double cheeseburger, but while it would surprise no one to see a trucker gone flabby around the middle, it was a point of pride that at thirty-nine he weighed only ten pounds more than he had in high school. When sirens lit up the darkness

car heaters, before bags of beef jerky. On a day like this? Every day, wouldn’t have it just been easier to die? Except—they didn’t. They pushed through. They insisted. They fought. Fifty thousand ancestors, going back and back, each of them a final girl.