JUNE 10th - Avoiding Dirty Cousin Roy

In a Marked This Day 1st, I'm going to expound on an event from the very next day of the very same year as yesterday’s post. On June 10th 1869, The Agnes steamed into New Orleans with a whole lot of Henry Peyton Howard's frozen Texas beef on board, which was the first time this had ever been happened. I could go into the process of how, involving ammonia and dry ice, but all you really need to know is that it worked. Frozen beef was delivered via ship and this changed everything. Don’t believe me? Think there would be McDonald's without a way to transport frozen beef? And do you think you would have had a super cool birthday party at McDonald's as wee-tyke in the 80’s if there were no McDonald's? Not without some serious metaphysical maneuvering my friend. No, you would have been stuck at Drunk Uncle Chester’s playing tiddlywinks with Dirty Cousin Roy, who would constantly shove all the winks up his nose. And then you wouldn't have grown into the socially well-adjusted person you are today. Instead you’d be sitting in your room surrounded by cats, or snakes, or jars of dead bugs wondering why Jennifer Lawrence or Ryan Gosling doesn’t ever write you back. And that’s not any way to live. So count your lucky stars for frozen beef. Frozen beef gave you McDonald's. And McDonald's saved you from being a social leper. And I’m not even going to get into how Taco Bell helped shape your extended adolescence. No late night Chalupas? That'd be like buying a bag of Jelly Bellys and only getting black licorice flavored beans. Unbearable. Frozen beef. It’s what’s for dinner. After checking for contamination, a thawing process, and a highly-regulated cooking method that leaves your Big Mac tasting like the manna it was intended to be.

This day has been Marked.

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