The Conbini Celebrate Mother's Day
And FamilyMart serves semi-hard hot dogs.
Mother’s Day is fast approaching. If you’re anything like me, then you’ll remember it's Mother’s Day three days after it’s passed when you hear from your sister that mom is very upset with you.
The good news is that it only takes a trip to the conbini to keep Mom happy. 7-11, Lawson, FamilyMart, and the rest have Mother’s Day catalogs full of surprises to make her smile or blackout drunk.
Lawson's catalog oozes Mom with pages of bouquets. Aside from traditional flowers like carnations, exotic species abound, including the Clematis Midget Blue, which moonlights as an STI bandying around Thai 'ping pong' shows.
Meanwhile, the Margaret Sakura Bell has all the appeal of sakura without looking anything like it.
But my favorite is the 4000 yen cactus (which goes for about $6 at Home Depot). The cactus is a swell metaphor for your relationship with Mom. Despite minimal effort, you can feel good that she is still alive.
Meanwhile, Ministop is launching "DearMovie," a web app that allows you to pair a heart-felt video with your Mother’s Day gift. You access the video through a QR code printed on a card, which gets nestled into the physical gift. Nothing says “Happy Mother’s Day” like substituting visiting Mom with a web app that requires her to scan a QR code.
Ministop is aware this snazzy tech may flummox some of their users. Seeing as young Japanese women are not having children, most DearMovie recipients will be elderly moms. Ministop brandishes the app's ease of use with a septuagenarian couple enthusiastically clapping.
I’ve never seen Gen Z clap at the sight of a QR code, never mind folks born in the Showa era. I’ve seen people grumble “Fuck this” and nearly throw their phones across a restaurant’s dining room. But clapping? No.
Semi-Hard Hot Dogs at FamilyMart
The conbini has been serving hot dogs for many years. Lawson’s infamous Gooooo Dog is so sloppy they serve it in a bag. FamilyMart, meanwhile, is serving up lukewarm garbage called “Hot Sandwich Hot Dog”. It describes the bun as “Semi-hard bread” using the katakana “セミハードのパン”.
Putting aside the awfulness of writing “semi-hard” anywhere near a hot dog, what FamilyMart describes is stale bread. They are serving a hot dog on stale bread and dressing it up with katakana English. It is like putting lipstick on a pig, but if the lipstick were poorly drawn dicks done in Sharpie.
Semi-Hard Hot Dog Special Offer
Item of the Week
Like Christmas cake and pizza, criminal enterprises control the beef jerky industry. A bite of jerky costs about $2. It’s a luxury item. I’ve only ever seen it popping out of Louis Vuitton handbags and resting inside BMW M3 cupholders
But the average Joe can still get his fix of chewy, salted meat. FamilyMart is serving up a big portion of beef tongue scented with lemon. Some may turn their noses up at the thought of eating beef tongue. In fact, it is tremendously tender and flavorful. Just get over what you’re eating. And if you can’t, then pair it with a six pack of Asahi Super Dry. Two beers will kill every morbid thought of lapping up beef’s sensory slab.
From the Dumpster
Not to be outdone by FamilyMart’s semi-hard hot dog, Ministop has also released a pile of garbage – the spaghetti onigiri. They have mixed pasta noodles with rice! It comes in two flavors: neapolitan and carbonara. Traditional carbonara is made with bacon, eggs, and parmesan cheese. Conbini-style carbonara is often wetter with a thick slick of white sauce, presumably cream-based. So, this ball is not just double-full of carbs but riddled with stuff that will make your heart stop like a Rod Stewart ballad.
This is not food. It is a weapon of mass destruction.
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