Sisterhood of the Traveling Plants

I'm currently out of town for work; I'm doing University business in beautiful Kansas City, Missouri. One of the advantages to taking work trips is that my meals are paid for, which is a huge money-saver for me (a major disadvantage is that I'm away from my wife, but thankfully I've been able to take shorter trips and get back to her quickly).

On the subject of meals, I had real sushi for the first time ever my first night here. Nothing says "fresh raw seafood" like "we're as far from a fucking ocean as we can possibly be," right? Anyway, the sushi was quite good, and I don't really regret it, except I noticed I had a hard time burping to relieve the incredibly pressure on my stomach after eating just a skosh too much. I tend to eat quickly and swallow a lot of air, and so for me, burping isn't just disgusting, or a party foul, it's a matter of survival. After all, nobody likes a puker.

Anyway, tonight I ate at Chili's restaurant, and I got to thinking.

First off, I've always known that chili is a meaty, spicy soup, whereas the Chili's logo is a chile, a type of pepper. This implies that Chili's restaurant is either owned (or was owned) by a person named Chili, or some sort of genetically modified animated talking pepper monster.

That would be cool...although I think "Chile monster" is not a Sesame Street character I'd ever want to meet. Cookie monster is a messy eater, but can you imagine getting habanero in your eyes because the fuzzy bastard next to you has no table manners? He'd be a total asshole, that's what I think.

A botanical note: being members of the Capsicum genus, and therefore the Solanaceae family (also known as nightshades), chile peppers are fruits.

This implies that Chili's restaurant is possibly either by a fruit, or possibly by the other kind of fruit.

Either way, it was still free. And that's super (thanks for asking)!