DC seems to be a hotspot lately and I must be its ambassador. I have a few friend from high school who are considering moving back and then I have friends that I met in NC who are considering moving here for the first time. All of them ask me the same question: Should I do it? Why or why not? Someone even asked me why the hometown love is absent from this blog. Today we're gonna tackle life's greatest mystery...
Why would an otherwise happy man choose to move to this godforsaken place?
First off, even though I constantly down it and post stories of the craziest things going on here, I love this city. As a matter of fact, anyone who knew me between 2000 and 2008 probably got sick of hearing me talk about how great DC is. I even had a miniature DC flag posted up in my cubicle right beside a Rock Creek Soda label and a Full Yum's Carryout Menu.
It's hard to say off the bat what I love about this place. Much the same way that we don't recognize how strong our love was for a person until they're gone from our lives, so was the case with DC. During my eight years in NC I managed to compile a list of things absent from my life and I'm gonna share em with ya. So today marks the beginning of the "Welcome to DC" series. For our first entry, we're gonna talk about the lifeblood of Washington, DC and no, it's not the Metro. We're talking about The Carryout.
I went to college in NC and the first thing I noticed was that there were no carryouts. There were places that sold Chinese food but that's not a carryout. Per Roget's Dictionary:
carryout- (noun) A semi-rundown establishment located on every third corner within a city wherein the staff serves such a bountiful selection of items that it is implausible that they turn a profit. Selections include, but are not limited to: Chinese Food, Pizza, Rib tips, rotisserie chickens, hot and cold sub sandwiches, fried and steamed seafood, gyros, hamburgers, mozzarella sticks and last, but not least, chicken wings with mumbo sauce.
You could go into any carryout right now within the DC area (I'm typing this at 11:59 pm on a Thursday) and not only are they still open, but they can cook everything I just listed and have it all ready in 10 minutes. I could call and order a poached pigeon breast filet in a white wine and three-eyed Potomac River fish reduction sauce and at most they'd tell me it'd take an extra five minutes to procure the fish.
And they don't stop at just normal food items either. A decent carryout also sells sodas, candy, Mystics and Everfresh are the official sports drink of the DC carryout. They have cigarettes (loose and whole packs), blunts, Black and Milds, cheesecake and carrot cake slices. I used to go to one that sold knit caps with Redskins and Cowboys logos, t-shirts and even went to one that did passport photos.
And to secure all of these items, they take precautions. For starters they're behind two inches of bulletproof glass. Whatever business you can't transact by talking through a little slit in the glass or food that you can't receive through a bulletproof turnstile just isn't that important.
Now I'm not gonna pretend the food is healthy. I'm offering ten dollars to the person who can provide photographic evidence of a delivery truck dropping food off at a carryout. I'm not racist nor ignorant enough to perpetuate the rumor that it's cats and dogs. That's just an ignorant thing to say, but I'm not gonna lie and say those are real chicken wings. I know pterodactyl when I see it. You ain't never seen a chickenthatbig in your life. It could be a penguin wing for all I care. As long as it's still $4 for four wings and mumbo sauce then I'm good.
And finally...mumbo sauce. The origin of mumbo sauce is probably something that would be told with the same visual grace and dynamic storytelling as the intro to the first Lord of the Rings movie. I'm sure some recipe was forged in the fires of Mt. Doom and half was given to the elves while some were given to the dwarves and finally the race of man. Sadly, no one knows that story by heart so all of us respond the same way when asked what the hell it is:I don't know.My theory is that it's a mixture of ketchup, BBQ and sweet and sour sauce, but what do I know? It could be the blood of those pterodactyls where they're getting the wings. All I know is that a chicken wing isn't a chicken wing unless it's drowned in mumbo sauce.
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