Eating Cheesesteak in Philadelphia

(Author's note: This post has always been here. If you didn't see it Thursday, you just weren't paying attention.)

It had come to my attention, during my tour of the Eastern states (to determine the most suitable purchase, of course) that Philadelphia was known for its cheesesteak. It was only reasonable, then, that I visit Philadelphia in my tour of Pennsylvania and - while resident there - attempt to devour some portion of cheesesteak representative of the fare.

My journey progressed pleasantly enough; the Statue of Liberty was as lovely as always, and the Leaning Tower of Pittsburgh looked quite lovely in its new location. Once I arrived, however, I found myself in quite a conundrum. It is my practice never to buy from street vendors; they are a class, in my sociology, somewhere slightly above insurance salesmen but markedly below lice. Thus, it became necessary for me to find cheesesteak from another source.

Now, you might reasonably inquire: why not buy cheesesteak from a fixed food outlet, that is, a restaurant, which offered it? The problem here was that - to properly evaluate a cheesesteak, especially in such an important context, the cheesesteak must be a legitimate cheesesteak; one sold from its traditional source. The unfortunate fact of the matter was, however, the traditional vendor of cheesesteak was (and remains) the lowly street vendor.

At this point, a lesser man might resign from the matter in disgust, and simply write off the city as a loss. I however, have not risen to the high position I possess by means of such lackluster pessimism. (Additionally, I am rather fond of other elements of Philadelphia; I find their sewer system, in particular, extraordinarily well designed.) I struggled onward, finally deciding to buy a cheesesteak from a street vendor whose various good qualities exceeded their inherent perfidiousness. I interviewed, in turn, a street vendor/charity worker, street vendor/living saint, and street vendor/Pope. It turned out, though, that the Pope had a few too many ties with Microsoft - some sort of vendor sponsorship deal, it's a bit of a long story really - so I just went with the open source version.

Having procured my street vendor/MozillaPope cheesesteak, I came on the matter of payment. It turned out that, in the course of my travels, my traveler's account had become rather depleted, and... well, they're telling me that I'm about out of time, so let's just say that I don't have as many organs as I used to; of either sort. I did, however, buy the cheesesteak.

It was okay, I guess. It was a sandwich, you know? I've had worse.

I ended up going with West Virginia. The rest of the East Coast can go to the Jenova's Witnesses.