seeing the country, one gyro at a time

It’s very similar to a hot dog vendor that you see on a street corner, but housed in a mobile RV…more closely resembling the nacho, ribs, and Philly steak and cheese sandwich vendors that can be found selling their wares at county fairs and church bazaars. And this large, white van which was offering “Tony’s Gyros” was parked right outside of Jim’s house as I pulled up to his front door yesterday.

Being that Jim is neither named ‘Tony’ nor likes gyros very much, I was confused as to where this thing came from and why it was now decorating his front yard.

“Please tell me that you were hungry and found a gyro place that delivers,” I asked him as he opened the door.

“No, man,” Jim replied, “this is my new business venture. I’m going to clean up!”

For as long as I’ve known Jim, he’s always been looking for a fast, money-making scheme. In college, he named his band ‘Free Beer’, and stuck up fliers around campus promoting their first show. “Free Beer from 11:00-12:00” the signs promised. The folks that filled the bar, however, upon finding out the free beer wasn’t the beverage but the band, became quite hostile…thus ending Jim’s career as a musician after 12 minutes.

A few years later, he bought hundreds of discount rings off of the internet. “I’m moving to Florida to start a toe ring company,” he told me one day. “Toe rings are the new belly-button rings! All I have to do is walk up and down the beach and sell them to people sunbathing…just like those guys that take your picture and for those key chains! I’ll make a fortune!”

After a few months, he found the toe ring business to be less than booming. And the few people who did purchase one tracked him down a week later and demanded their money back because Jim’s toe rings had left a curious turquoise ring around the toe that it had been placed on.

He returned to town and decided that the city needed a movie rental delivery service. His plan was simple…people would call him with the movie they wanted to watch and he would drive to Blockbuster, rent the movie and then charge his customers a dollar more than it had cost him. But with the increasing gas prices and the availability of movies on cable, Jim quickly found that he was losing more money than he was making.

Now, however, he felt that he finally found a goldmine.

“Jim, where in the world did you find this gyro-mobile?”

“At some estate sale,” he told me. “All I have to do is drive down to the Regatta or maybe some college campuses, and sell gyros all day! I might even take a few months and follow the Grateful Dead or Phish around the country, selling gyros to their fans at their concerts! It’s ingenious!”

“Do you even know how to make a gyro?” I asked.

“No, but how hard can it be. Besides, since you’re not working right now, I thought that maybe you’d like to help me out until you find a job. I’ll give you a percentage of the daily sales.”

And with no job and no prospects, it appears that I’ll be learning how to make gyros very soon and embarking on my new career as a professional gyro chef.