Who Would Send Me A Vienna Beef Tee?!?

I received a most interesting gift yesterday.

I was sitting at home, wondering what to do next (finishing grad school is a little bit like what I imagine getting married is like... that is, you spend a year or more preparing for this major goal, and then it happens, and then you say, "OK, so this is it? Now what?") when my doorbell rang.

It was a FedEx delivery man.

He handed me a mid-sized box marked "Vienna Beef Store" with this logo:


I thought, "Hmmm, who is this from? Is the box reused?"

Looking over the box thoroughly I could find no signs of who sent it. It appeared to have been mailed from the Vienna Beef headquarters in Brunswick, Ohio. I don't know anyone who lives in Brunswick, Ohio.

With great curiosity and a certain amount of trepidation, I found a knife and cut open the box. For some reason, I kept thinking about this news story (ie: the girl who got sent her dog's severed head) to which my friend Ash once sent me a link.

Fortunately, however, I only discovered this inside...

A Chicago hot dog t-shirt!

I have one good friend who lives in Chicago, and I immediately began rummaging through the box to find any signs that she was the sender.

After a couple of seconds, I found the invoice and discovered that indeed, a Ms. Katrina M. was the purchaser.

Then I laughed out loud.

I think this says it all... it's Katrina and her husband Tony eating beef barbecue in Kansas City in 2005:

This picture makes them look a little like barbarians, but I assure you they are fully civilized.

I took that photo at Jack Stack's Kansas City Barbecue when Miguel and I stayed an evening with them two summers ago en route to AZ.

For a bit of background, Katrina and I were stationed in Texas together in 1996-97 in the Air Force, and she was my best friend there. The girl is wonderful. She's witty, smart, and best of all... FUN.

I have fond memories of slip-n-sliding at crazy parties with her after a few too many wine coolers, singing the country song "Strawberry Wine" with her in her little Honda Civic, having our tent washed away in New Mexico and then drying out our wet underwear on her car antenna, and... my favorite story... staying out all night once in Acuna, Mexico drinking Coronas at the Corona Club and Ma Crosby's -- and she drove our friends and me back several hours to San Angelo at about 4 am on a Saturday morning just in time to arrive to teach her Sunday School class.

Oh, and how can I forget that she was with me when I totalled my Jeep in a remote area of Big Bend National Park in 1997. As my friend Kris and I attempted to crank up my Jeep on a jack, Katrina wailed, "We're going to die out here!" I think I might have laughed out loud if I hadn't been so distressed about the fact that my front axel was broken in two. As it was, she hiked partway out, found a bunch of hunters with a load of corn in the truck (with whom we hitched a ride on top of the corn for about 25 miles back to the main road), and then had to ride back five hours to San Angelo spooning with our other friends in the back of another pick-up truck to make it home. I think we saw about 100 shooting stars that night.

Katrina = Random Fun. Katrina = Hot Dog T-Shirt.

Plus, she & Tony just moved back to her hometown of Chicago (in an apartment right near Wrigley Park!) and apparently she is eager to introduce me to another city's most famous meat product. The funny part is, I think she is one of the most health-conscious people I know.

Here we are back in Kansas two summers ago... (frankly, I think I look like an ugly nerd in this photo, but it's good of Katrina)...

Thanks, dude!

ps - I'm not sure when I plan to wear this fine garment. I'm thinking of how I can incorporate it with the "Boff" portrait t-shirt that I acquired a couple of months ago... "The Sausage Casement King meets Chicago's Finest Frank."