UNO MAS, CON TODO!

What many of the late-up-staying residents of San Francisco know is that the food options after midnight in this city are strange and wonderful.
In consequence of which I slept fitfully.


DREAM ONE

I'm out on a date with the girl of my dreams - Suzie Derkins. Did I ever mention that I'm a sucker for smart chicks? This girl is it; clever, funny, and an A student. Unfortunately, the dinner of fried rat grosses her out.
Wake up.


DREAM TWO

I never go down to the wharf. Now I know why. One is likely to get mugged there.
While shopping for stylish San Francisco Giants gear, I become aware of a sharp stabbing pain in my ankle. And a squeaking noise. When I look down, there's a small hamster wearing a turtleneck trying to saw my foot off with a nail file.
I've heard of such things. Gift hamsters, once the thrill has worn off, end up neglected and become delinquent. They start taking drugs and run away from home, to waylay tourists and knock-over souvenir shops at the piers.
It's San Francisco's secret shame.
Heck, they may look all cute and innocent. But those lovable furry beasts are playing you for a sucker. While you're at work, they're turning your apartment into a crack house, and renting out your station wagon to criminals.
Hamsters, everyone knows, are extremely bad news.
But fortunately you can easily outrun them.
I never did buy the baseball cap.
And I've still got my feet.
Despite furry thugs.
Wake up.


UNO MAS, POR FAVOR, CON TODO

At around two in the morning I went down the street to the Walgreens, where an unlicensed food vendor sets up shop on the sidewalk late at night. Bacon-wrapped dog, bun, mustard - mayo - ketchup, plenty grilled onions, pickled chili peppers. Si, con todo. Gracias.
I had two of them. It was a good idea at the time.
How was I to know about the dreams?

Suzie Derkins was the round-headed girl in Calvin & Hobbes. The comic strip stopped running in 1995, so she's probably all grown-up now, and doing post-graduate studies at some place like Princeton or Harvard. I'm guessing an impossibly wichtige major, like mediaeval art history with an emphasis on surviving heathen elements in church decoration, or the hidden morals in mythology.
But she still has tea-parties with her dolls.

Hamsters are cup-sized animals originally native to the Middle-East.
They can live for about three years. To their owners they have distinct personalities.
I'll agree that they are rather cute.
Rats are more intelligent.

By the way: I never wear clothing with sports emblems or logos. No team-branded sweatshirts, no Forty-Niners sleepwear, no San Francisco Giants baseball caps.
All such things look stupid.



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