dice exercise #11

elephant/burger/lightning/banana/fire/cell phone
 
It was a grand scheme, you know.  Nobody had yet considered the obvious profit in elephant burgers. Of course, certain calculations were necessary to prevent waste.  You don't want to make a thousand patties to feed ten people.  Well, we did have that good industrial freezer, big enough to fit the animal in before it was processed, but it just didn't feel right to have an elephant dragged, skin and tusks and all, into your place of business.  That's right, we even got 'em with tusks on.  I'm surprised, actually, that they didn't sell that ivory off first, or kill for the ivory and give us the leftovers.  I mean, I know that's illegal and all, but I know the black market is lucrative.  I mean, I don't know, but I've heard.

Anyway, we got our first shipment to the processor out by the old highway and got everything ground up and packaged.  They took the tusks back with them, along with a few bones, acting like they were surprised that we didn't want them, but they could do us the favor of taking them off our hands (after we had paid for them with the meat still on, mind you!).  We got things divided into three pound packs and boxed up and stacked up in the freezer before the night was out.  It was looking pretty good, if I do say so myself.  Something about that wild meat looks so healthy, even when it's just a mass of ground up flesh.  Even dead it looks like it'll kick you in the face if it can, or something.  We were ready for our grand opening that evening.

We had a pretty good turnout, but not much in the register at the end, what with all the giveaways, brand building and that.  We didn't serve as much as I'd hoped, but the freezer was going to keep everything fresh for us.  We had stock for the whole month, at least for burgers.  And maybe things would pick up if we got the health idea to spread around.  It's funny how positive rumors never have as much traction as negative ones.

The first week was alright, although I'd hoped for a little more in the customer department.  Still, it was just the first week, and we were still within the projected range of profit/loss and product usage.  Then the disaster happened.  Was it a short circuit?  A bad freezer?  Sabotage?  Who knows?  Al I can say is that one morning I was coming in and got hit with the stink of rot from three blocks away.  I couldn't believe things had gone bad so fast, when just a half a day ago everything was fine.  Maybe things were already going off and I spent too much time in there to notice any subtle odors.  Maybe elephant burgers have a safe time of three hours unfrozen and uncooked.  The fact is, we had to figure out what to do, now that we had an industrial freezer full of bleeding, stinking, zombie-looking eleburgers.  Steve was just staring at the leaking doors, calmly eating a banana.  It made him look more like a gorilla than his hulking frame and unfortunate body hair already did.

Naturally, we didn't open that day.  I took advantage of the lack of eyes around me to sprinkle the gasoline and drop the spark (no matches, just in case.  Those Youtube survival videos sure came in handy for starting a fire, though).  Then I drove west until I couldn't keep my eyes open.  Fortunately, there was a motel just at the exit after I almost drifted into the ditch, a lonely looking cheap motel.  Wasn't even a McDonald's next door.  So now I'm on the bed filling out the insurance forms and getting distracted by that infernal buzz.  Is there a fly in here?  Oh no, it's my phone.  It's Mr. Ran.  I bet he has another great idea for me...