Yesterday when I was sitting at work I started thinking about kelbaski, and how I have not had some in a while. The only place in Orlando (that I know of) to get some good kelbaski is a little polish deli located on Aloma Avenue. However, I did not feel like driving across town for some kelbaski.
My coin-bowl was starting to over flow so I decided it was time for a trip to the coin star. The closest one is located in the Worlds Nastiest Winn-Dixie, which is located down the road from me. This is the only grocery store I have been to that has a full time security guard stationed at the front door. I never shop there, the only reason I go there is to use the coin star. I dumped my coins into the machine and waited to see what ones would be rejected. I got back:
A crusty penny
A Canadian quarter
A 1964 dime (apparently all dimes before 1964 are all silver, and thus rejected by the coin star)
A quarter from 1984 that had been painted all black.
All in all I got a sweet twenty-five bucks out of the coin jar. I went and picked up a six-pack of amber bock, and decided to see what kind of kelbaski they had over in the lunchmeat section. I was standing there peering at the packages of meat products when suddenly two old southern black ladies came up to me.
One of them was wearing a Sunday hat. The other one looked even older and was in an electric scooter chair. The one with the hat walked up to me and said "Big Legs!"
I blinked and said, "Excuse me?"
She said, "You got some big legs! We gon' cut you up 'n serve you in the meat department!"
And with that the old woman in the scooter opened her toothless maw and started cackling at me.
Once they were done with their laugh they wandered away, leaving me momentarily befuddled.
The kelbaski I ended up getting was nothing short of disgusting. I have never seen a kelbaski that oozed out some sort of yellow bile when you boiled it up. I ate part of it, because I was hungry, and it haunted me all night.
I just hope it was not made out of big legged white boys.
2026 Update
Dialing the brass-and-receipts time machine back 20 years to watch Ed nearly become deli meat.
Twenty years ago, coin jars were real treasure, and Coinstar was a slot machine that paid out in cash instead of shaming you with fees and gift cards. You had to drive across town for decent kielbasa because no app would deliver questionable Polish sausage to your door; now the questionable sausage comes to you while you watch it on a phone. Grocery stores had full-time security guards at the front door, not because of organized retail crime, but because the whole place felt operatically grim. And a stranger could still roll up and deliver a cannibalistic compliment without a phone being whipped out to record the moment for a hundred thousand strangers. Also, 2006 Ed, you knowingly ate bile-oozing mystery meat because hunger and stubbornness outweighed the warnings of two terrifying prophets. The world has changed around the coin bowl, but the eternal lesson remains: if a woman on a scooter says you're going to be lunchmeat, believe her.
“2006 Ed, after the old lady in the Sunday hat promised to cut you up and serve you in the meat department, why did you linger long enough to buy the bile-oozing kelbaski instead of sprinting out of the World's Nastiest Winn-Dixie? Was that half-eaten sausage really worth haunting your night?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, you gotta understand, I’d already committed. I had the six-pack of amber bock in my hand, and if you let a little cannibal talk scare you off, next thing you know you’re payin’ toll money for nothing. Plus, part of me figured those ladies were doin’ a bit—Sunday hat and all. The toothless cackle was creepy, sure, but it ain't every day someone compliments your legs, even if the compliment comes with a promise to slice you up. So I stayed. And yeah, that kelbaski was a mistake. Yellow bile is a sign, and I ignored it because I was hungry and already there. It sat in my gut like a guilty conscience. Worth it? Hell no. But that’s the story of my life: I’ll brave a cannibal joke for the chance at a decent sausage, and end up haunted instead. Take that, foul meats.
