Food Truck Showdown in Space (Part 1)

"Okay, here we go. Focus. Burgers. I am burgers. One winner, one loser. I eat losers for breakfast." Randy stood in front of the grill, mumbling to himself.

Mindy threw a potato at his head. "Can you shut up and help us? You've been standing there muttering movie quotes to yourself for the past twenty minutes, while the two of us have been prepping the ingredients."

Randy rubbed the spot where he had been hit. "No can do, accountant chick. Kitchen prep is side character work. As the main character, I have more important things to do."

"Like what? Seems like you're doing a whole lot of nothing."

He let out a chuckle. "Maybe to an untrained eye, but I have the most important job of all... I'm the face of this company."

"Whatever you say, 'Mr. Company Face.' Mindy looked completely unimpressed. "You know the contest starts in like ten minutes, right?"

"Then I guess it's time..." He snapped his fingers and pointed at me. "Little bro, get your phone and take a picture of us all. Make sure you use the vintage filter."

"What for? Don't we have more important things to worry about?"

"This is important. When they make a movie about me, they can use that photo for the end credits."

He was adamant about the stupid picture. I knew there was no point in arguing. I pulled out my holo-phone and propped it up facing the grill, as the three of us got into frame while it counted down. One... Two... Three... There was a clicking noise as it snapped the picture, which had Randy with an ecstatic smile across his face, while Mindy and my faces looked less than enthused.

"Looks great! Make sure you back that one up to the cloud." Randy cheered.

"Five minutes. Beep bop." The robo-ref announced over a megaphone.

Randy looked at the two of us as he crossed his arms and nodded his head with a smile. "With me at the grill and you two doing your things, I think it's safe to say we've already won this thing."

"Aren't you a little too overconfident?" I asked.

He laughed. "It's not overconfidence if it's the truth."

I liked his energy, but he was a little too sure of himself. For the sake of our business, I really hoped he was going to take this seriously.

"One minute. Beep bop." The robot warned.

"Well, this is it. You ready to do your impersonation thing, little bro?" Randy wondered.

"Not really, no." I responded, not feeling confident in the least.

"That's the spirit!" What I said completely went in one of his ears and out the other. Next he looked at Mindy. "And you, accountant chick, are you ready to take some orders?"

She gave a slightly disinterested yawn. "I guess so. As long as I don't miss Worgan Mallen's performance, I really don't care."

"Alright then. Make sure you get a picture of this too." He grabbed a stool and planted his foot on it, taking a pose similar to George Washington crossing the Delaware River. He prepared to flip open the service window.

The robot began its final countdown. "Five... Four... Three... Two... One... Beep bop." Its starting pistol was fired off with a loud bang that echoed through the parking lot.

I snapped the picture while Randy threw open the window. Unlike an hour ago, the lot was now packed with space pick-ups and country music fans dressed in cowboy attire.

"Now get out there and bring us some customers." Randy grabbed the back of my shirt collar and my belt.

"What are you-?"

He proceeded to toss me head first out the window.

Dusting myself off from landing on the pavement, I looked around. At the moment, there wasn't a single customer outside of our truck. What was a bit more concerning was that a handful of people already started lining up outside of the sushi truck.

I straightened up my fake mustache and adjusted my snapback, while approaching the first two concert goers that came into view...

"Just a heads up in case you guys are hungry, we just parked our food truck over there."

"..." Neither appeared to have heard me.

"We sell burgers at our food truck." I attempted to get their attention again.

"..." They still seemed to be preoccupied.

The alien on the right had a weird turquoise pyramid shaped crystal-like body with a human face popping out of a circular opening. It had a set of robotic claws for hands and rather than having legs, it hovered using some unknown force. The alien on the left, at first glance looked like an ordinary potted cactus with a smiley face drawn on it with crayon.

I tapped the pyramid alien on the shoulder...

Immediately it shot around. "I get it dude! You got a food truck. I heard you the first time. Can't you tell we're not interested?" It lashed out at me.

"Prickle prickle... Prickle prickle... Prickle prickle." The cactus began aggressively poking my stomach with its spiky appendage.

"Ow, what the heck was that for?" I wailed.

"He says your face annoys him and that your Worgan Mallen costume sucks." The pyramid translated.

"Alright, fine. Sorry." I quickly turned away and went to find another crowd to bother. Obviously being direct wasn't working and people weren’t buying my costume. I needed to take a different approach.

In front of me, a tiny pink space bus with Greek symbols painted on the side of it that was about the size of my foot, descended down onto a parking spot that was excessively large in proportion to it. Out of it came an army of pink ant-like alien sorority girls, all dressed in doll-sized cut off short shorts, crop tops, and sparkly cowgirl hats.

I pulled out the sign that Randy had given to me earlier, as I approached them. "Would you ladies be-."

The slightly larger one with wings, who I assumed to be their leader, cut me off. "Ew, what are you like 5' 6"? If you're going to try and talk to us, at least be over 6'."

The group of them wouldn't even give me the time of day. They all marched off to probably go get hammered. Part of me couldn't help but feel a little emasculated, especially considering the fact they were ants. At the very least they could have been accurate about my height. For the record, I was actually 5' 6"... and a half.

I looked back toward our rival's truck and just like before, it had a steady line of people. Our truck on the other hand; not so much. There was one singular dude standing out front of it.

"Wow! I've only seen this model in vintage magazines." The little gray alien, dressed like a stereotypical nerd with braces and tape on his glasses, spoke in an annoying nasally voice.

"Uh, No, I'm not a model. You're probably mistaking me for my mom." Mindy became a bit defensive.

"Not you, I'm talking about the truck. This model is the oldest one I've seen in person."

Her face immediately dropped. She looked a bit insulted.

"Go on, shoo. We already served you." Randy began waving him off.

The nerd alien continued rambling, obliviously. "I'm a vintage truck enthusiast. You got yourself a real beauty here, sir."

"Yeah that's great. If you're not going to buy more food, then go loiter somewhere else, nerd bro."

The nerd pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of our truck. "I can't wait to share this with my subspeddit, s/spacetrucks."

The alien walked away, face buried in his phone, as he typed away.

"Who the heck was that guy?" I wondered.

Randy shook his head. "No clue. That nerd bro just walked up, ordered a burger, ate it in like two bites, then just sat and stared at our truck with a mesmerized look on his face."

"Have there been any other customers?"

"Nope and technically he was our first ever paying customer, but I'm not happy about it because he didn't even react to my food... Anyways, how have things been going on your end, little bro."

"Terrible, so far everyone I've approached has been a jerk to me."

Randy sighed. "Of course they are. That's because you're soliciting the wrong kinds of people. The drunker the better." He reached into his front apron pocket and pulled out a wad of paper slips. "Take these."

They were hand cut coupons that he made using a red marker.

I deciphered his terrible handwriting and looked back up at him, confused. "You're giving away free tap water with the purchase of a burger?"

"Exactly! Everyone knows these concert venues charge outrageous prices for bottled water. It's the perfect incentive."

I had to admit he did have a point. Not to mention, people get dehydrated and hungry when they drink alcohol. It's the perfect combo. The question was, could I get anyone to take the bait?...