Quick, buy lots of rice!

The other day, I bought 40 pounds of rice. Not because I need 40 pounds of rice, but because everyone else was. It is the cool thing to do. Much like the Christmas rush for Tickle Me Elmo, Rice is all the rage. (Though I am not sure you will get much enjoyment out of tickling a bag of rice.)

I don’t know what got into me. I don’t even eat that much rice. I was reading my news sites and they mentioned that there was a run on rice. Maybe it was for the challenge of it all, or maybe it was just to spite those people that thought they were going to die if they weren’t able to fill a semi-truck with rice to get them by for the next few days, but I went on the hunt for the elusive bag of rice.

I knew that Costco would be out, so off I went to the local Cash and Carry. It is a store that carries all the run of the mill corner store hubba-bubba gum crap that Costco doesn’t.  Lucky for me I had my Chinese co-worker in tow so I would have someone to tell me which stuff to buy. (Like I know, I eat meat and potatoes most of the time.) In we went and swiftly found our way to the rice isle. “No good kind of rice here,” my co-worker informed me. So… off we went running around the store in search of more rice. Lucky for us, we got the last 4 cases of rice on the end-cap. Ok, they were sitting in front of a pallet of basmati rice, but evidently that stuff isn’t very good, so it doesn’t really count as rice.

You would have thought we were unloading bricks of gold from Fort Knox by the way people were looking at us. Keep looking pal, but when you are stuck eating old cans of spaghettios, I will have a big old bowl of rice… You can have your fillet Mignon, but will you have rice? I will.

So 3 of us at 40lbs of rice each on our shoulders marched out of the store. We were victorious in our hunt. That is right honey, your brave hunter gatherer just brought home something that everyone else seems to want. It must be valuable, right? I mean they throw it at weddings, more than half the world eats the stuff on a regular basis. Having 40 lbs of rice is like striking oil in your back yard.  In fact I think tonight I am going to run out in the street with a bag of rice over my head and do a rice victory dance.

I had sweet satisfaction later that night when I went shopping at Costco and went by the place where the rice was supposed to be. There was another white guy staring wistfully at the place where the rice used to be. “Bummer man,” is what I wanted to say, as he sadly lugged two 20 pound bags of flour into his cart.  I did a little victory shuffle right there, hoping secretly that he saw me and realized that I had bought 40 pounds of rice earlier that day. Reality set in though and I realized that I had to get some flour too. I tossed a few bags into the cart and it was off to the oil isle I went. The same guy following me. I guess he figured I knew my stuff.

40 pounds of rice, 80 pounds of flour, and 3 gallons of oil are now in my possession. Bill Gates, eat your heart out. You will be in your island mansion only wishing that you had the rice that sits safely in my garage. Oh yeah, and just as punishment for you releasing Vista, I am not sharing.  It probably would not be compatible anyhow.

I can now rest at night knowing that when the buildings are burning and the people of the world are killing each other for lack of food, that I will have my rice.

Does anyone know how to cook rice?