Well, I hoped to write my first blog of the week tomorrow about Charlie Sheen, but due to emergency circumstances I have to write today.  I arrived at the Microtel (the actual name of my hotel)in Des Moines this afternoon.  Despite the quite comfy accommodations, I was hoping to be near a shopping mall or at least a strip mall, but instead I am across a highway from a gas station.  The only two eateries near me and that won’t get me killed traversing a highway are Ruby Tuesdays (can’t eat every lunch and dinner there – I’m not made of money!) and Arby’s.

As I write this I just finished a “meal” at Arby’s.  It was the second time I have ever been to an Arby’s because, like the first time, I was compelled to by lack of access to another cheap restaurant or a bag of garbage.  I went in, starving and saw that I was the only one there.  I looked around to make sure there was not a hostage situation or something going on and then I realized it was worse than that – the cashier was a Western European Unibrow chick with limited English skills and even more limited Arby’s skills.  And she was a trainee.   If she was at least a south of the border immigrant I could deal with that because I have enough exposure to them in NYC, but this chick felt alien to me.

So 54 minutes after placing my order I got my meal and Unibrow gave me a knife and fork, possibly for my soda, or however they eat in Unibrowistan.  If you do not know about Arby’s they are the fast food franchise that lost a bet and were forced to dedicate themselves to the roast beef sandwich.  As the fry accompaniment they have decided to go with curly fries.  Here are the problems with this:

• Roast beef, unlike hamburgers cannot be replicated to resemble their best product outside the fast food context.  A Burger King hamburger is still tasty, even if they use chemicals to get there, but Arby’s awful, slimy, undercooked roast beef will never come within 1000 miles of a Boar’s Head roast beef sandwich from a deli.  They add some awful cheddar cheese and a watery bbq sauce (I think that is what it was).
• They dedicated their whole store to this awful “raost beef.”  By comparison, Chic Fil-A dedicated themselves to preventing gay marriage and chicken – a much more versatile meat product for fast food purposes.  They also added the under-used but excellent waffle fries to get privide support to the chicken, which brings me to Arby’s 2nd flaw…
• Curly fries suck.  They were cool in college when the dining hall or snack bar would surprise you, just for variety, but they suck.  Curly fries were the highlight of this awful meal, however, so it was like Brook Lopez on the pre-Deron Williams Nets, a player getting his because of the terrible circumstances he found himself in.

And for the next 5 days I will be held hostage by Arby’s.  There is nothing around here.  It is like I am Johnny Fontaine and Arby’s in Woltz, the producer who denied him work in The Godfather out of spite.  I am surrounded by fields and highways.  I guess I will have to stick a horse’s head in Unibrow chick’s bed to get another cheap restaurant around here.