Low Bid Sausage

While traveling to various factory sites where sumdangdik is often called to be consulting with or training the customers, there is ample opportunity to visit various restaurants that vary from region to region. This usually works out quite well unless he is visiting Alabama. Folks in Alabama eat food that would be considered unacceptable in other states, and they actually tell sumdangdik where not-to-eat. Although the local folks enjoy eating soul food, it often gives a visitor a case of indigestion. Even at a mainstream place like Waffle House, if the server asks if you want something (like "extra protein") that you never heard of before it is best to say no. At the bar and grill it is better to avoid anything fried and simply have soup and sandwich.

Then it's off to work for sumdangdik. He works in a factory in an industrial park which smells bad. Folks who drive by say, "Here comes the smell place" and roll up the car windows.  One day the Norfolk & Southern train folks decided to stop for an hour nearby, which was blocking traffic on some local roads.  They thought it would be a good place for a layover until they got a few whiffs of the local aroma, mostly consisting of rotten meat piled up at a cat food factory.  Apparently the meat will sit out in the sun for two or three days and then the factory will can it as cat food. Poor cats.

Even the cat food in Alabama is worse than cat food elsewhere. When the Norfolk & Southern train folks found out that the air smells that bad every day, they decided to park their trains elsewhere. Local roads are rarely blocked by stopped trains anymore. Tourists stay away. There is a big American flag on a pole in the yard at the factory, and people will look out the window at the flag to see which way the wind is blowing before going outside. If the wind is blowing from the direction of the cat food factory then the people stay inside a building and go hungry.

Eventually the work is finished for the day and sumdangdik retires to a local motel after a simple dinner of soup and sandwich. The next morning he goes to a well-known restaurant chain "D----'s" and orders the large breakfast of bacon, eggs, and sausage, because he is still hungry from the day before. When the breakfast arrives he notices that the breakfast sausage smells like the cat food factory odor. There had been a rumor that the cat food factory was making "people food" as well. It seems that the "people food" is breakfast sausage made from meat that has been rotting in the sun for two or three days. Some bean counter at the well-known restaurant had apparently bought a bunch of this sausage because it was cheap, hence it came from the lowest bidder. Sumdangdik can still catch a whiff of the cat food factory when he is visiting the well-known restaurant during breakfast hours. If he says to you, "Don't eat the sausage" that means don't even cut it open otherwise you will be able to smell the cat food factory for yourself.

Some products shouldn't be purchased on the basis of having the cheapest price.  Don't buy or eat the low bid sausage.