Taking Back My Streets

All across America the kids are out of school and into video games and drugs, the local swimming pool is overflowing with urinating toddlers and elderly men in speedos, and the cities are experiencing brownouts as air conditioners are switched into overdrive. It's summertime, and unless you live in a basement or have some horrible disease that cuts off your brain from all five senses, you're enjoying the scorching heat along with the rest of us. Sure, summer is a time for leisure activity and beating the heat, but it's also a big business season for the street vendors of America. If you don't have the pleasure of living in a city, then please allow me to explain.

When the summer sun rises hundreds of people pushing little carts full of every single thing you could imagine never wanting scurry out of their dank street vendor caves like reverse cockroaches. The carts generally have two wheels, an umbrella, and one or more awful food items that vaguely suggest the idea of summer. The guys pushing the carts also constantly ring a bell to notify those who aren't out on the street that "a cart full of some random shit is outside, come on and out and buy some".

Oh my goodness, what a surprise, he's selling a bunch of fried crap!In my neighborhood alone there are vendors pushing carts full of sno-cones, ice cream, and corn on the cob. That's right, if you feel the heat getting to you, there is nothing quite like a cool refreshing ear of corn smothered in rancid mayonnaise to help you chill out. Don't like the sound of that? Thankfully the same vendor who sells the mayo corn also sells delicious plastic bags full of "something fried". Something fried is a taste sensation. They are sort of like pork rinds that are made out of hog bones instead of hog meat and fried in a vat of heavily salted lard. So if you're a big fan of pork rinds and you have a rare blood disease that leeches sodium from your body, then "something fried" is just for you.

In addition to the vendors with carts there are also multiple ice cream trucks that have an affinity for stopping on the corner I live on while their music is blasting at maximum volume for half an hour at a time. Apparently they look through binoculars for people who want ice cream in neighboring cities and wait for them to arrive on foot while parked next to my apartment rockin' out to the hottest hits like "that fucking clap-track song" and "she'll be comin' round the mountain and searing my soul with her repetitious chorus". The ice cream trucks make things much more convenient for my pending lawsuit against their owners by operating until well past 11PM. I don't know what kinds of fucking kids are wandering around my neighborhood at 11PM wanting ice cream, but whoever they are they must be deaf since the ice cream trucks seem to turn the volume up on their music as the sun goes down.

Never a man to passively accept the hand dealt to me by a bunch of no good street vendors and ice cream trucks, I have taken matters into my own hands. Over the past three weeks I have been using the remaining liquid assets of Arlogeist GmbH to finance the creation of Funtime Summer Snack Carts. My goal is to flood the market with my vendors, driving the non-Arlogeist vendors into other neighborhoods. Then, next summer, I will close Funtime SSC and enjoy the peace and quiet.

That's just glossing over the beauty of my strategy. I have specially tailored each of the carts to counteract the forces of vendor evil at work on the streets surrounding my apartment. Each will play a vital role in the elimination of "that fucking bell" and "those goddamned ice cream trucks" and if everything goes according to plan I may even enjoy the latter half of this summer street vendor free.

Not pictured on this model of our cart is the umbrella and mandatory deep fryer. Deep Fried Crispy Onion Rings
The most disgustingly greasy foods appear to be a big hit with the street vendor crowd, so I'm stocking several of the Funtime carts with our special recipe of "deep fried crispy onion rings". Made from only the finest onion rinds and insect parts, these delicious onion rings are fried, then deep fried again in our special seasoned lard that contains a mixture of secret herbs, spices, and less than five thousand parts per million of human feces. Served buttered and salted, our onion ring vendors are set to put all of the other fried food vendors out of business in a hurry.

Mom's Homemade Pie Pockets
After you've enjoyed some of our scrumptious deep fried crispy onion rings, track down one of our dessert carts and ask for Mom's homemade pie pockets. Available in apple and cherry, these generous pie portions are baked and then glazed with sweet icing. I'll let you in on a trade secret; "Mom" is actually a Ukrainian immigrant we hired to unwrap ten pallets of past-expiration Hostess Fruit Pies we found sitting in the sun near a lake-side warehouse. One in ten of the pies is infested with baby mice so we have "Mom" insert a straw into each pie "she" unwraps and take a taste test to ensure that only the finest pie pockets make it into our vendor's carts.

The Big Kahuna Frosty Icee Slurp
Funtime has concocted a unique taste treat that is sure to help you beat the heat. The Big Kahuna is a 32 ounce blended fruit and ice drink with a kick that we like to call "Hobo urine". That unique zesty tang is what keeps people coming back to our Big Kahuna vendors for that refreshing and thirst-quenching iced beverage. While it is supposedly available in Cherry, Orange, and Purple flavors, all three contain the exact same quantity of every ingredient except iodine (for color). To ensure the quality of our product, all buckets of hobo urine that go into making Big Kahunas are certified disease and contaminant free by the hobos themselves! Each of our "flavor contributors" signs a written statement to that effect before they are permitted to take their three dollars.

Arlogeist emergency crews work to clean up the disastrous prototype test of the Garbage Bee Cart. It used Africanized killer bees and proved fatal for two brave test vendors. The Garbage Bee Cart
Bees love dumpsters and trashcans and people generally hate swarms of agitated bees even more than they hate trashcans and dumpsters. The Garbage Bee Cart harnesses mankind's timeless fear of beestings and the street vendor's Achilles Heel of sticky sweet foodstuffs and a small trash container. The GBC will be pushed to within fifty feet of a rival vendor and a smoke generator within the bowls of the cart will begin to spew thick smoke into an adjoining chamber containing a hive of bees. Once the bees are good and angry, a trap door will open in the side of the cart facing the opposing vendor. A swarm of agitated bees will erupt from the trapdoor and proceed to harass and drive away the rival vendor's customers. For protection the man assigned to the GBC will be wearing a full bee-keeper suit disguised beneath a painstaking recreation of the Philly Phanatic costume.

Nachos by the Handful
When we decided to get rid of paper containers for our nachos we also decided to pass the savings on to you. Blended in a large mixer contained within the cart, nachos by the handful are a scrumptious nacho paste and you can have as much as you can fit in both hands. Just pay for your servings, reach in, and grab yourself a snack. Due to limitations on the equipment we could not build a starter into the mixer so all carts must be started at the Funtime depot at the beginning of the day. By purchasing nachos by the handful you agree to waive all rights for injury litigation against Funtime and our parent corporation Arlogeist GmbH. Inserting your hands into the mixer may result in severe injury including loss of limb.

The Amazing Fruit Bonanza
Funtime, in conjunction with Arlogeist Effluent Disposal, is proud to offer an exclusive new fruit to our produce vendors' carts. So secret that you cannot even see it without purchasing it, this fruit was carefully developed by Arlogeist waste disposal engineers at our 5,000 acre Hazmat Disposal Site in scenic Blasted Heath, Arizona. We think it may be a cross between a cactus, a pear, and some sort of snake, but only your taste buds can solve this mystery. Be sure to grip the fruit firmly behind the eyes where the neck meets the seed chamber, failure to do so may result in the fruit biting you. While we have taken great care to defang all of our fruit, the fruit is venomous and may have re-grown its fangs during shipping. Keep in mind that the fruit is not normally hostile but will lash out if it feels threatened.

Doctor Dunk'ns Donut Disaster
Doctor Dunk'n left the oven on too long and he's baked too many of his delicious cream-filled donuts and chorizos. With nowhere to put all of these extra donuts Doctor Dunk'n was happy to share them with us at a substantial discount, and once again we are passing the savings on to you. Available in three sizes based on the trimester, Doctor Dunk'n has cooked up a delicious treat for adults and children. I would like to take this opportunity to correct the spelling of the word "donut" on the cart, it should have been spelled "A-B-O-R-T-I-O-N".

I have the will and the resources to take back my neighborhood from these noise-peddling scumbags. With a little help from you, the consumer, I think my campaign can be a resounding success!

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