Lard Butt

There are few things better in this world for a Lard Butt than roaming the aisles of Costco and enjoying a plethora of free samples...on one recent visit, your humble Lard Butt correspondent actually found one of these elusive things in the form of an Otter Pop!  Yes, THOSE narrow frozen delights anyone who grew up in the 1970s or 80s learned to love!  Part popsicle, part mini-snowcone in a narrow, clear pouch, the Otter Pop has a certain spot in Lard Butt's pro-forma Food Hall of Fame...

Orange, grape, strawberry, lime, watermelon...heck even 'BLUE RASPBERRY' (did you ever wonder, 'what the #*&! is blue raspberry?!').  It just didn't matter in the days of School House Rock and Starsky and Hutch.  All flavors were AWESOME and provided plentiful ways to replenish the palate after a football practice or just as an afternoon snack!  If you happened to gulp down a little bit of that clear plastic along the way?  Well, so be it...

Fast forward to June of 2010 and there I was in a Costco, sampling a grape Otter Pop, flashing back to grade-school...and staring an investment opportunity in the face that stood to give me 200 (yes, TWO HUNDRED) Otter Pops for less than ten bucks.  After about two seconds of careful deliberation, I pulled the trigger and proudly loaded up my cart with the big ol' box of Otter Pops.  As luck would have it, the smart-ass checker assumed that I had a bunch of kids at home, as he said 'Something for the kids, eh?' 

'NOPE,' I simply said as I shrugged my shoulders and made my way out of the building and toward the Pops' new home in my freezer.  Since that fateful day, I've enjoyed many happy returns on this most worthy of investments.   **My personal record for a single setting is 11 (eleven) Otter Pops -- anyone top that?  Any other Otter Pop memories?