A public health warning

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

Do NOT eat this beef jerky!

It is horrible, and will leave a taste in your mouth something like fermented tomato soup. Picture cutting up an old backpack into strips, painting both sides with old mayonnaise and vomit, then letting them dry in the sun. That is what Arizona Jack's Desert Star Original Beef Jerky tastes like.

I should have known. Where Jack Link's bland and greasy jerky is $6.89 for a 4-ounce bag, this stuff was normally priced at $3.49 (though it's $7 on their website), but at this particular truck stop in Penn's Grove, New Jersey, it was marked down to a dollar a bag... lower than the cost of producing it! I guess even they wanted it the hell out of there but couldn't bear the thought of just throwing it away. That, and there's the public health risk. Suppose some homeless person dumpster-dives a bag, tries it, and pukes all over some paying customer?

It was horrible. I was too nice even to open the sunroof and heave it out onto I-95.

Gas prices have fallen through the floor. Gas at this particular truckstop was down to $1.95 a gallon this morning, down four cents since Friday night. Diesel was down to $2.41, down from $2.50 a couple of weeks ago. I jammed seventeen gallons into the tank and paid $43 for it. I'd have been delighted if the bargain jerky had been delicious, but of course, balance insisted that it had to suck ass. So, it did.