So let me tell you how I ended up singing “Pure Imagination” to Aaron Franklin, the magician behind Austin’s Franklin BBQ, just before LoneStarCon 3 began.

Those of you who followed me as I made my Worldcon foodie plans already know all about Franklin BBQ—how Texas Monthly named it as turning out the best brisket in Texas, which means it’s the best brisket in the United States, which probably means it’s also the best brisket in the world. How by the time Franklin opens each morning at 11:00 a.m. there are already hundreds of people waiting in line to eat there. And how if you don’t get there early enough, you get nothing. (Or perhaps you get nothing but cole slaw … like Hitler.)

Which means that instead of flying to Worldcon in San Antonio early Thursday morning as I normally would have, I instead headed there late Wednesday, so that I could rent a car that night and therefore have it ready super early the following morning in order to make the drive from San Antonio to Austin (about 79 miles, or an hour and 13 minutes) to arrive at Franklin’s front door no later than 8:30 a.m. Thursday. That would (I hoped) allow me and my hardy band to stuff ourselves with BBQ and be back at Worldcon by 2:00 p.m.

My first stop after I landed and picked up my rental was to head to a Walmart near the San Antonio Airport, where I bought four collapsible folding chairs plus a cooler so we’d be up for sitting several hours outside Franklin. Even though there’s a guy who rolls up beside Franklin each day and rents collapsible chairs for five bucks a pop, I didn’t want to take the chance that he’d run out, so I just went ahead and bought my chairs for $5.97 apiece.

Early the next morning, I got to the lobby of the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter at around 6:45, where I was met by two friends—Rosemary Claire Smith and David Wohlreich—and headed off for Austin. (A third friend, Eddie Schneider, decided to begin his trip in Austin, so he didn’t need to tag along.) We got there at 8:23, at which point I was the 15th person in line, which made me happy, not just because we were guaranteed BBQ, but also because we were also in the shade. (Eddie had gotten there a few minutes earlier, and was a couple of people ahead of us.) I spoke to the guy who was #1 in line, and he said he’d arrived at 8:00 in the morning. But keep in mind this was a weekday, not a weekend, for which you might have to arrive way earlier in order to get that choice a place in line.

We sat there, drinking our cold sodas and water and listening to the Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, Sr. music playing out of the loudspeakers, one of the few times I wasn’t offended by being forced to listen to music, since they had such a good selection. Sometime after 9:00, an employee brought out a huge cooler of water and let folks know the bathrooms were available, which was a good thing, since if we were going to spend hours sitting around drinking so as not to dehydrate in the hot Texas sun, they were going to be necessary.

Probably at around 9:30, a couple of women came out and began conducting what I think of as a meat census. They weren’t actually taking our orders. They didn’t care what sides we were having, what drinks we’d be downing, whether we’d want pecan pie or key lime pie for our desserts. No, they just needed to know what meat we’d be having inside and taking away so they could figure out which person on the line would end up being the last to get anything.

For example, person number one in line, in addition to having his platter to eat there, also got five pounds of brisket to go. As for me, I was going to order a two-meat platter (brisket and ribs), plus a sausage link on the side, to eat there, plus three pounds of brisket and a pound of smoked turkey to go. I intended to wander Worldcon handing out brisket to those deemed worthy enough … or anyone who came up and asked, actually.

Time passed pretty quickly, though the aroma coming our way from the cookers was killing us. Probably at around 10:30 (sorry, but I wasn’t keeping exact track of time; I was simply reveling in the experience), the man himself, Aaron Franklin, came out. I got out of my collapsible chair and started chatting with him, explaining that I’d come all the way from San Antonio in order to have his brisket that day, and he basically went, “Oh, you’re that guy!”

Turned out he’d been following me on Twitter as I was looking for fellow foodies to join me on this road trip, and shopping at Walmart, and heading from the convention. He even remembered that months earlier I’d tweeted at him to make sure he’d be open during the Labor Day weekend. He even asked after the ukulele I’d threatened to bring along (which I’d tossed back in the trunk of the car once I realized my strumming wouldn’t have melded well with the piped-in music). I asked him about his expansion plans and generally told him how excited I was to finally be getting a chance to see what he could do with brisket, and then he went back inside to continue to get things ready.

When the doors opened at 11:00, and we got inside, the first thing I did was try and figure out which T-shirts I wanted to wear, because he had a variety of them on a shelf along the wall right where we waited. It still took us about 35 or 40 minutes from the time we got in until we made it the front of the line to place our orders, because all the meat is hand cut, and if the first 14 people ahead of me were each taking quite a bit of brisket with them, as seemed to be the case, it was not simply a matter of grabbing hunks of meat and wrapping them in brown paper.

But the wait was worth it. When I got up to the counter and put in my order, Aaron Franklin had his meat cutter slice me a nice burnt end and hand it over. And when I bit into it … what can I say? My knees buckled, I moaned, I reached out and hugged Franklin. It was truly the best brisket I’d ever had.

Then he stunned me. When it came time to pay for my platter and T-shirts and meat to go, he turned to the employee at the cash register and said lunch was on him. I told him not to be ridiculous, that there was no need, and I’d be happy to pay in full, but he said that anyone who’d been as excited about brisket as I had been over the past months deserved it. And so … another hug.

Still boggled by the act of generosity, I took my food to the table our group had staked out and proceeded to dig in. We didn’t speak much, because the wonder of what Franklin had been able to do with that brisket banished all thoughts from our heads. We’d chew, say, “unbelievable,” chew some more, say, “incredible,” chew some more …

It went on like that for awhile. We ate slowly, savoring each bite, not wanting the experience to end. At that moment, I became spoiled for any other brisket.

And when I say I’ve been spoiled for other brisket, believe me, I’m not just speaking hyperbolically. I don’t see how I can ever eat another piece of brisket and not measure it against the Platonic ideal of Aaron Franklin’s brisket.

Yes, truly, the Platonic ideal. All other brisket is but the shadow cast against the cave wall by Franklin’s brisket. As we ate, Franklin moved throughout the restaurant, schmoozing with customers, asking if they were having a good time, truly taking joy in the fact they were taking so much joy in his BBQ. (And though I’m focussing on the brisket here, believe me, all the other meats were awesome, too. But what can I say? The brisket was awesomest!)

Midway through our meal, Franklin came over and told us that if we wanted, he’d let us see his cookers once we were finished. Which we were of course thrilled to do.

As we followed him, I told him that he didn’t just run a BBQ joint, he ran a candy store. He was the Willie Wonka of meat! Moving through a side room to the cookers out back, I sang part of “Pure Imagination” to him, because that’s what it really felt like as we were heading out back …

“Come with me, and you’ll be, in a land of pure imagination … “

And as he introduced us to each of his cookers, that’s what it smelled like back there. But of course we were not allowed to peek inside any of them as the drop in temperature would totally have destroyed the magic he was attempting to create. The cookers were still marvels to behold—propane tanks which he had retrofitted and into which he had cut hatches so they could deliver exactly the heat he needed out of them.

And then, still stunned by what we’d experienced, we drove back to San Antonio, where I’d hoped to stun others. I sent out an invitation to any Worldcon attendee who might spot my tweet—

Dear #LoneStarCon friends: I'm back from @FranklinBBQ with three pounds of brisket. I shall soon walk among you. Ask and ye shall receive!

— Scott Edelman (@scottedelman) August 29, 2013

—and then I wandered the convention, offering slices to any friends I thought would properly appreciate them. It was wonderful seeing their eyes pop open as they bit in and realized, hey, this isn’t just brisket, this is BRISKET! A number of people looked at me and simply said, “Wow.”

I’d hoped to get back on Saturday, when Franklin would be selling beef ribs (which, as The Man himself told me, were “gooood,” stretching out that syllable so I’d know just what I’d be missing if I couldn’t return). I wasn’t able to manage it, so Saturday morning found me dressed like this, because though my body was at LoneStarCon, my spirit was 70 miles away …

Bottom line: You must get there if at all possible. But whatever you do, get there early. Or else …

… well, you know.