April 19, 2006
By The Salmon

Zodo's
Calle Real, Goleta

The door of the DeVille slammed and my good friend, The Manta poured himself into the passenger seat.

“I’m gonna need some socks,” he said. His sandal-clad feet are testament to lifestyle free of the modern man’s footwear.

I swung the Caddy over to Long’s Drugs, and we perused the aisles. Women’s socks are cheaper and more colorful, but the fit looked a bit tight. By this time, we were late for our lunch/bowling date with Ed, so we did what any dude would do – we brought him some flowers. There was a stack of outdoor garden plants, and the ones in the hanging pots made for convenient carrying.

We entered the darkened bowling alley, once known to locals as the Orchid Bowl, with geraniums in hand. Ed was nowhere to be seen. Another old accomplice of ours, known locally as The Rooster, had already kidnapped him and dragged Ed’s corpse off to the video arcade. Manta quickly challenged Rooster to a game of “Dance Dance Revolution Extreme”, and Ed and I watched in horror as two highly educated men began a digitally-dictated version of Soul Train.

Fortunately, we were saved by the arrival of The Lemon, a young woman on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, and the powerless in a world of testosterone-driven men who operate above the law.

She pulled us out of our ActiVision world and into the exciting culinary experience of Zodo’s Grill. Here we found an enticing menu of, well, burgers, chicken sandwiches, and fries. Sure, there were also salads, soups, wraps and the like, but none of us dared. The menu seemed to have been penned by a fourteen year old. Words like “awesome” “bitchin” “kickin” and “famous” are over-used to describe such revolutionary cuisine as onion rings and mashed potatoes.

The food can be summed up as follows: I ate my Philly Cheese Steak because it floated quite easily on the current of Michelob available on tap. Ed suffered through a chicken sandwich and ultimately, buried the carcass in his mashed potatoes. Rooster bailed before the food arrived, and The Manta (a SB High graduate) asked to have the Royal’s Turkey Sandwich converted to the Don’s Turkey Sandwich. God only knows what transpired in that kitchen, but the result was less than satisfactory.

Ed got the bowling started with a screaming gutter ball to port. We proceeded to scare the lunchtime crowd with vulgarity, and an increasing consumption of ales and lagers. Orange balls excited us to no end and the Van Halen soundtrack seemed like it would play all day and into the night. Which is when the cab finally picked us up.