turn a mountain of lies, turn a card for my life....

I would like to dedicate this blog posting to Spolumbo's fine foods and deli sausages.


This story starts somewhere around 11 months ago when I first started working landscape maintenance in Edmonton's many overgrown subdivisions. Some subdivisions are well established and have little shopping centres full of Sobeys/Safeway/Save-On, DQ, McDonald's, Taco del Mar, Tim Hortons, etc. However, some of the newer ones don't have much more than a gas station. It was in the subdivision of Parkland that my idea of convenience store hot dogs was transformed. Last summer, all Parkland had in it, as far as shopping, was a Husky gas station. But let me tell you, it was a deluxe Husky. It was about 9am one fateful morning that I strolled into that store looking for a bathroom, and found instead a rolling grill full of hot dogs. Being the meat lover that I am, I decided that maybe 9am is a good time for a hot dog and made myself up a bun. And you should have seen the available condiments...banana peppers, saurkraut, fresh cut onions, etc. (and this was before 7-11 started beefing up their condiment stashes). Well, I bit into this hotdog and it revolutionized my life. I felt it was my duty to share this with my crew so we came into the habit of having a 9am Parkland Husky hot dog break. Obviously word had gotten out about these pieces of heaven because if you got there much later than 12, all the hot dogs would be gone.

One day on our break, I was standing in line for a hot dog with this older man (yes, there was a lie up for these hot dogs) and since I had noticed him there before I made some sort of comment about how everyone seems to come for the hot dogs. At this point I put down eveything he was doing, stared me in the face and in the most intense, seriousness said "These, are Spolumbo's." He then went on to tell me that he came everyday from the northeast end of the city where he works (at least a 45 minute drive) to this Husky to have his Spolumbo's sausage.

Well, ever since, karen and I have been spreading the Spolumbo's gospel. We tell everyone we know that going to the Parkland Husky to have a hot dog will change their lives in ways they could never imagine. So you can imagine our excitement when we returned to Parkland this week to do some work with our new crew. We ran into the Husky in great expectation, only to find the clerk filling the rolling grill with frozen "Fletcher's" hot dogs and the only condiments to be seen were ketchup and mustard. You can imagine our disappointment. It was a small tragedy. When we called the clerk to task about it, she said they quit because the construction workers would load up their hot dogs with all the condiments and leave none for anyone else and make a giant mess on the counter.

Of all the soul-killing moments I experience working in subdivisions, I feel this moment is in the top 3.

Goodbye Spolumbo's sausage. You will be missed.