It's time for a little barbecue deconstruction. Let's use Hannah's menu for today's text.
The first thing we should analyze is Hannah's claim to being "The Best in Barbecue." Now, this statement is patently false. I had just been to the Mountain Smokehouse, and I was on my way to Lexington when I stopped at Hannah's, and I can tell you that empirical evidence contradicts Hannah's claim entirely. Every morsel of food I ate at this execrable excuse for a barbecue restaurant tasted like it came from the nasty end of the pig, if you know what I mean. This place is not "The Best in Barbecue." Maybe they meant to say "One of the Worst Places in Barbecue," because that would be a lot closer to the truth.
But let's look a little closer at the menu, shall we? It states boldly that Hannah's serves "Other Tasty Treats," which suggests that Madame Hannah serves even ONE tasty treat. HAH! Talk about some tasteless pig, talk about grotesque chicken--do I even dare to go into the fatty, disgusting ribs? Oh, and the barbecue beans? Tell you what: go into your kitchen, open a can of Heinz, pour a bottle of KC Masterpiece or some other cockamamie concoction onto them, and you'll probably have something a whole lot tastier than the beans at Hannah's.
According to that other barbecue deconstructionist, Jacques Derrida, "Il n'y a pas dehors la texte" (or something like that; my French is almost as bad as Hannah's food)--there is nothing outside of the text--but old Jake is completely full of pig poo on this one. There is not only la menu to consider, there is also la building. Now, I'm willing to grant that a certain amount of ugliness can lend an indescribable charm to a barbecue shack, but Hannah's is so depressingly hideous that it makes a Taco Bell look like an architectural wonder. And it smells, too. When I walked in, I was assaulted by that dirty-rag-wiped-on-vinyl stench that sticks in your nose for way too long.
Finally, Hannah's claims "4 Convenient Locations." Personally, I'm glad that these locations are all way too far from my house to make Hannah's nothing but a bad memory of a distant shore. If you find yourself driving anywhere near a Hannah's, just keep this in mind: There's probably a convenience store at the next exit. You can get yourself one of those plastic-wrapped ham and cheese sandwiches, squirt some yellow mustard from a packet onto it, get an icy Yoo-Hoo, and have a far better meal than the one you'd get at Hannah's. --The Mayor
