Since
raising this issue a year ago, not one person that I have talked to
has said, “I like Prime Rib.” I suspect that anyone that is
young enough to be able to use a computer will concur that Prime Rib
needs to be replaced by something like Lobster, Salmon, steak, or Barbecue
Chicken.
To fully understand how ridiculous the Prime Rib dinner is, let’s examine Saturday as a whole. We sit in the Council Ring donating our money and listening to jokes about some guy named Turner Brown with a spread of food that would make Thanksgiving at George Foreman’s house look like famine. Then we sit around with a Cool Aid smile on our faces feeling good about being charitable and in anticipation for the Main Event. What do we get? A slab of fat with a side of Prime Rib? I wonder if there is a more anticlimactic moment in life than looking down and seeing a piece of meat that contains more fat than the soap made by Tyler Durden in “Fight Club.”
“Give
the people a reason to stay instead of skipping town early for Newport.”
Seriously, if you had to rate Prime Rib dinner amongst the following most anticlimactic moments in life, it wouldn’t be far behind.
- Realizing “Striptease” has no nudity
- Super Bowls of the late 80’s and early 90’s when the Cowboys,
Redskins, Giants, and 49ers battled in the NFC Championship games for
the right to play those tough Buffalo Bill and Denver Bronco teams
-“Seinfeld” finale
- 12:00am January 1, 2000
- Graduating College
- Week 1 of the XFL season
- The day you come home from your honeymoon
So,
you end up sifting through your meat like a 10 year old sifts through
his trick-or-treat bag in search of the Reeces Cups and get those 3
small pieces of meat that you feel will not have you rushed to Sanford
Hospital with a heart attack. This is where you eat away and think to
yourself, “Now I know why there is a mass exodus from this place
immediately following the buffet in the council ring.”
Lets examine some of the common complaints about Prime Rib:
1)
It sucks
This complaint is 100% accurate by anyone who is young enough to have
taste buds. Those who no longer have taste buds would be just as happy
to be served chicken and be told it was Prime Rib.
2)
It is expensive
It is one thing to have a bad meal if you are going to McDonalds or Pizza
Hut and are spending $4, but this stuff is extremely costly. I challenge
the new Don of OTW, “Mr. John Zinman,” to enlighten the general
population of Old Timers as to how much this stuff costs. Most people
would rather have a different meal or even not have a meal at all and
go to Peebs or the Stoneridge.
3) It sucks and it is expensive
The worst possible combo. When it comes to dining usually your choices
are either spend a lot for a good meal or spend little for a bad meal.
Occasionally in life you will be lucky to find a place where you spend
little on good meal. Yet, on Saturday night we have no problem with spending
a lot on a bad meal. If the Mess Hall were a restaurant would its managers
advertise “Bad, Expensive Food” on Saturday night?
4) If you build it we will stay
Give the people a reason to stay instead of skipping town early for Newport.
It is my belief that a Lobster dinner would be the kind of incentive to
destroy this recent trend of Johnny Leave Early’s.
5) Give the money to camp
I suspect that most would rather have the money it costs for Prime Rib
to be given directly to camp, have our fee reduced, or have the money
go into the pockets of some of the CITs who get paid $125 to work an estimated
50 hours of difficult work. I wonder if it is true that NIKE and Kathy
Lee are trying to outbid us for our kitchen workers.
Since my bitching has not been a successful tactic yet and because I obviously
have about as much pull as Cameron Fry (from Ferris Bueller), I challenge
everyone to e-mail John Zinman (johnzinman@mediaone.net) and just leave
a message that you either like or hate Prime Rib. I believe the new Don
believes in Democratic principles and that if enough people e-mail him
in favor of ending Prime Rib that he will serve the will of the people.
If he decides to abuse his power and veto our complaints, then we may
just have to impeach him.
