The Utopia Parkway Diner

There are bible thumpers in the parking lot,
And the Krazy Kandy Korner lives just across.
Sure, it may be kind of scary but what's your point?
The finest St. Pat's shakes come from this joint.

You'll find everything you need here
oou-wee-oou
The finest cup of joe there could be, here
oou-wee-oou
Down by the town of Flanagan
*FLANAGAN*

It's Bechtel's
*Bechtel's* bop bop
Just Bechtel's
bop bop

ooooou-weee-ooouuuuuu - yeah -

Well then, now that we've gotten that out of our collective system.

Just about a year ago today we were making a leetle excursion down to the fair hamlet of Peoria, Illinois. Near the forceful yet gentle town of Flanagan, we stopped for sustenance at the port of Bechtel's. Okay - we admit it, we looked it up and discovered Bechtel's is actually in Roanoke. But dammit, 'Flanagan' flows so trippingly off the tongue....

And what greeted us in this checked-print bastion of diner food? ST. PATRICK'S DAY FOOD!

A lot of people try to change the natural colors of foods for this verdant holiday. Some even go so far as to dye rivers. But if you're *really* creative, you do like Bechtel's and make a whole meal of foods that were green before you ever laid your grimy little hands on them. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

KEY LIME PIE
Not Denny's-green key lime pie. _Natural Born Killers_ green, if you know what we mean. That unnatural green. That fake-Christmas-tree, Mountain-Dew-gone-even-more-wrong, radiation-born, Armageddon green.

GREEN MINT SHAKE
Well, technically, mint flavoring isn't really green because in distilling the Essence of Mint, if you will, out of the leaves the green hue is cruelly eliminated, forcing the undaunted mint-maker to reintroduce the green coloring. But, hey, it still counts.

BROCCOLI
Special bonus points for this one: it even kinda looks like clovers.

SOUR CREAM
You know what we mean - the old stuff that's been sitting in the back of your fridge for 4 months. Here's the perfect opportunity to fulfill its material destiny. Waste not, want not!

You can take it from here - leaves for plates, braided grass utensils, tree sloths for benches, etc. - you know the routine.

We highly recommend, however, that you avoid eating the plethora of St. Patrick's Day paraphernalia that becomes magically available on March 17th.

Vert appetit!