The hot dog guy outside the building always has interesting stories. I haven’t heard many of them because I only eat hot dogs when a) I forget my lunch and have less than 2 dollars in my wallet or b) I am moody and choose to be self-destructive by eating only vending machine food and hot dogs. So that’s maybe three times a year. Anyway. Hot Dog Guy (his real name is Mike but anecdotes sound better with nicknames. Seinfeld has changed the world forever in that regard). Hot Dog Guy has a second job at a major international shipping company which shall remain nameless (it has three letters in its name, that’s the last hint and I mean it!). Today he told me about the excitement of the holiday shipping season, when employees order New York Style Pizza straight from New York when they work overtime.

The customers send even more exotic things, such as lobsters on dry ice. In the holiday rush/slowdown, sometimes the dry ice melts and Hot Dog Guy hears the reanimated lobsters scritching around in the box. Click, Scratch, Shuffle… I’ll save the one about the damp 32-box delivery to a high school biology classroom, in which one of the boxes breaks.