girls of effulgence | bts

twenty-two

Jason could promise you a lot of things, like a hot dog with mustard. He could promise his prices were low, and that his customer satisfaction was paradisiacal. It was a given, he'd been grilling the weenies since he was 47 precisely, ever since his little niece, the size of a pig runt, Faith, had banged on her high chair and threw her cereal at his hairy chest while he sat relaxing and watching baseball, demanding an orbicular piece of meat. One of the devilish grains had gotten in his belly button hole, and remembered it wasn't such a pleasant experience.

That's how he had gotten up and started grilling hot dogs. That's also when he found his first job, and proved to his parents he wasn't still a child, though he still lived in their basement.

Jason was now the owner of a happy hot dog stand in the middle of a Brooklyn undergrown subway station, selling hot dogs to hundreds of demanding Faith-like people, fortunately for them, with his shirt on. And everything had been going splendidly. He forced a smile on his face to keep his satisfaction rate high and made sure to cover up the fact his hot dogs were not hundred percent meat. Or meat in general.

He could firmly avow he woke up on time, and hadn't had any beer or alcohol the night before. His brain was as perfect as any Generation X man could be, and he was free of the skepticism he usually had for the rushy New Yorkers, always on their phones and practically tripping onto subways.

He was quite an observer, and frankly, quite rational, so he wasn't quite sure what to do when a woman came up to him and punched him straight in the nose.

Jason strewed backward, almost falling into a baby stroller, giving him a few nightmares of Faith. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he had seen what he just witnessed, and also felt his nose, because ouch, it hurt. His eyes were not being devious at all - there was indeed a female bull standing in front of him, fuming.

Jason blinked a few times and gave his lungs a good batch of air to momentarily catch his breath with a net, and regain his heartbeat down to some normal beat cycle, not where his vascular organ was practically dying to leap out of his body and start a Jump Rope For Heart competition. Jason couldn't blame it though. It was a heart after all.

Being the rational person he was, Jason calmly said, "what the hell was that for?" Spitting his gingivitis breath all over the NWD lady.

The woman shoved her crocodile skin handbag up her arm, and shoved a hot dog in his face, a fresh smell of relish invading his nostrils making him gag. What kind of relish was that?

"I asked for sauerkraut," the woman growled, clenching the hot dog with her long nail claws squirting some relish flecks onto his face and crushing the poor bun blanket of the doggo, "and you gave me to relish."

Oops. Jason briefly remembered the woman ordering the hot dog about fifteen minutes ago. He definitely remembered her ordering sauerkraut, because he had the feeling of his anxiety skyrocketing seared into his brain, a memory he was afraid he would have forever. Mostly because he had no idea what sauerkraut was, so frankly he definitely didn't have it in his little stand at all. Instead, he put relish on the hot dog after a quick Google search of what sauerkraut was, since it was the closest thing in looks with the aberrant new topping, and prayed to the hot dog god that the woman wouldn't notice.

But apparently, she had.

Jason put on his smiley face like he always did after every grueling day, and took the deflated hot dog out of her hands, carefully avoiding the deadly talons on her fingers. "I'm sorry," said Jason in his robotic hot dog voice, "I will fix your order right up."

Jason pretended to look at his box of toppings, being wary of the demon woman, and then gasped horrifically.

"Oh no!" He popped his eyes out of his scrunchy face. "We're out of," he choked dramatically for effect, "sauerkraut!"