Minimart Munchies

It sits along highway exits, urban outskirts, and suburban fringes, like that second or third cousin at the Thanksgiving table, the one on parole for some penny-ante, nickel-scamming, dime-a-dozen felony, the one you
try not to establish eye contact with but who seems drawn to you like Dennis Franz to a cheap snitch. And somehow, when you need a forbidden smoke or an empty calorie fix or you feel stupidly lucky enough to trade a dead first president for a scratch-and-sigh Lotto ticket, you need him, too. The minimart, the convenience store, the stop-and-shop, the bodega -- it has more aliases than a least-wanted grifter hanging out with the commemorative stamps and the disgruntled letter-schleppers.
Why the bad noir similes and second-rate Chandler? Well, I just finished my sixth or 10th reading of my favorite piece of
American literature, The Long Goodbye. To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, if you have the means, I would highly suggest you pick up a copy. Anyway, after taking another trip with Philip Marlowe through '50s L.A., I realized just how pitifully lacking our socially politicized, thoroughly cybersized world is in good, old-fashioned, seedy noir ambience. That is, with the exception of the minimart. Where else can you grab a pack of smokes and a bottle of the discount alcohol du jour, gamble away a few bucks of (hopefully) disposable income on a couple instant Lotto tickets, and crack wise about President Clinton, the Cubs, or society's other major woes with the world-weary Joe or Jane behind the counter. And the food is a hard-boiled smorgasbord: Too much sugar, too much starch, more salt and grease than on the undercarriage of an embezzling bookie's car at the bottom of a Utah lake. Jazzed-up non-colas designed to make any adolescent twitch more than a '63 Amana washer. Twinkies and Hohos and other would-be pastries hiding sweet cream and other deep caloric secrets. And what sounds tougher than Beef Jerky? "The name's Beef Jerky, sister. You seen Slim Jim around?" Look at it this way: I could have been reading Herman Melville.

Download minimart.zip. And give me two of those pine tree air fresheners,
a pack of Juicy Fruit, a pint of Old Harpers, a Sprite, and five gallons
of unleaded, please.