Last night as I was reclining by the fire puffing on my antique Meerschaum and reading a rare collection of letters from the lost Andean explorer Miguel San Cristobal a horrible rapping at my front door shook me from my reverie of lost cities of gold on the roof of the world. The snifter containing the last of my 1945 Malvazia Barbeito crashed to the floor as I shot from my chair.
Who could it be at this late hour? Had my dalliances in the black arts finally come back to haunt me? I cautiously opened the heavy wooden door and was shocked to see a bedraggled man, near death, or perhaps, as I feared, undead, standing before me. The man took one step forward and uttered a sound I hope to never hear again and pressed a tattered sheet of paper into my hand. I instinctively recoiled but held onto the note whatever it was, shocked it did not burn through my hand. The poor wretch then collapsed and slowly dissolved into the thin air.
I hurriedly unfolded the paper. Twas not a warning or curse from the minions of Nath-Horthath at all, but a missive from Jack Jackson. It was merely a restaurant review, but clearly a restaurant review from a man teetering on the edge.
Below I reproduce this document in full as it may be the last we hear of this brave explorer of the far reaches of local theme restaurants.
Valentinaland
By Jack Jackson
I should’ve known that it was going to be a bad night, by the shit on both of my shoes after I came home from it all. But that would mean that I somehow had pre-ordained/forethought/dreamt that this night would happen, and I would’ve/should’ve missed the turds that my dog likes to leave by the entrance carpet.
No, this night was not predestined, not fore-ordained. It was caught up in the Neverland of the opposite of faster, better, cheaper: it was caught up in the land of hatred, pain, and evil. If I were an accomplished writer, it would’ve been caught up in the land of pain, evil, and hatred, for no other purpose than to achieve a tricolon crescens, a Latinate rhetorical figure which is marked by three constituent parts, each increasing in either syllables or length.
Messineos, Alesios, you all should be ashamed of the eating monstrosity that is now known as Valentinaland, the location of my first minimum wage job, the Bishop Heights travesty you created out of money lust. I know the story, for it was related to me by an insider. You wanted to end the lease, but you knew a dude who had some extree token machines and ticket machines. Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you.
My entrance, for my niece’s fourth birthday, was marked by an uncanny lack of service. As a matter of fact, there was no one, not one single employee, there at all. No one was there to greet, no one was there to sit, no one was there, to my utter shock, to take our money.
How, I wondered, would we spend our money, if no one was there to take it?
Silly, I later was, to think of such a question.
Valentino’s, for those uninitiated, is the Twinkies of pizza in Lincoln. Oversweet and low-quality, it pleases the masses in no way any good pizza could. That’s why you find the truly good pizza places of Lincoln low on the KFOR lists, like Piezano’s and Yia Yia’s (although I think Yia Yia’s sucks, it’s better than the diabetic shock you get from Valentino’s).
Let me assure you, Valentinaland may be advertised as a fun blast (BLAST!) for the whole family, but it is the Worst Place on Earth. Worse than Iraq in Winter. Worse than camping without fire. Worse than New London of Winston Smith’s “1984”. This place is pure shit.
Why? For starters, their salads are brown. I wouldn’t eat it. My family asked why not. I said, “I don’t eat brown lettuce.” They said, “It’s always like that here.”
Okay, so then why do you order it? If you know it’s always shitty, why pay for it? I said, “Send it back.”
But then I became the jerk, because I wanted to fresh(er) lettuce.
I want to express one thing I liked about Valentinaland: the mouse mascot, or whatever it is, is economically correct. I mean, er, anatomically correct. It has five fingers, five toes, each hand. That’s impressive. Some hack local artist took the time to make sure the black lines were there to ensure you know it has five fingers and toes. That’s a rarity in shit-ball money-grubbing mascots.
What about the pizza? I used to work there, long ago. Had I served a pizza that had the dough bubbles in it that I was served, I’d have been fired. But apparently it’s completely okay to let bubbles rise in a pizza now, and burst, and then overcook, and burn the cheese, and then be served.
Did I mention that it’s impossible to get service? Do you know why? Because there is no service. I suppose that means profits are high. Capitalism is minimizing costs and maximizing revenue after all.
And that brings me to the machines. A token is a quarter. You play terrible games like Spider Smash and Skee-ball for tickets. I saw my niece blow five bucks to earn fifteen tickets. And that was enough to earn a Tootsie Roll. Way to teach kids all about capitalism, because the truth is “garbage in, garbage out,” after all.
I want you to know that I did get over, though. I filled my “water” glass with “fountain drink” at one point. Actually, I did it twice. But I know that that cost about two cents, and I didn’t really get over. It was the thought that counted.
By the way, two scruffy old men came in to play a claw machine while we were there. They weren’t part of any party, and they dumped two dollars to lose nothing. Addiction? Pedophilia?
Can anyone explain to me why they serve breadsticks with freezing cold marinara sauce?
