Dec 8, 2002
What You Want, Lady?
Mornings start well when they start with Marmite on toast and latte from the local Armenian deli. Well, at least they start surreally.
The people who work there have a sort of Good Cop – Bad Cop thing going on. You go in and depending on who you get serving you, you might be in and out in the time it takes the bread to brown, or it could be a lot longer than that.
If you get the Good Cop, you place your order, she prepares it, and then you leave. Simple. Uncomplicated. Straightforward. If you get the Bad Cop, woe betide your hangover – you’re in for a long ride.
The Bad Cop woman snaps, in her thick Armenian accent, “Yes lady, what you want?”
As soon as you open your mouth to ask for some Marmite on toast, she turns around and starts ordering the KP around [tangent: I once worked in a kitchen where the KP (Kitchen Porter, for the uninitiated) insisted on being called the Dish Pig]. So you’re stuck there with a half-formed request on your lips, stomach rumbling. A minute later, she turns around and says “Who’s next please? Yes lady?” and then fixes you with a steely glare and says “You want bagel with cream cheese lady?”
“No,” you say, “Mar-”
“Marmalade on Ciabatta?” she growls.
“Er, no…toast with M-”
“Mayonnaise?” she says, already grabbing the catering-sized jar off the shelf.
“Marmite,” you mumble through your hangover, “just toast and marmite. And a latte”
“You want brown bread white bread?” she queries, already putting white bread in the toaster and pushing the slot down.
“Yes, white is fine,” you say, resigned to white bread anyway.
She’s not so much Bad Cop as Vague Cop, I suppose.
Then halfway through preparing your toast, she asks the next customer “Yes lady, what you want?” and then ignores her, or leaves your toast cooling on the metal countertop [tangent: what's the name for the beads of moisture left on the counter by hot toast? Toast sweat?] while she goes to beat up the DishPig or make a Bacon and Jelly Bap or whatever.
When she returns to your toast, she puts way too much marmite on it (toast should be lovingly caressed by marmite, vegemite, etc, not slathered in it) and then wraps it in greaseproof paper and thrusts it at you saying “fifty-five p, lady”
“Er,” you say, fumbling for change “…and my latte?”
She barks in Armenian at the DishPig, who grudgingly shuffles over to the coffee machine thingy and then promptly makes you a cappuccino, with extra sugar.
Nothing like a perky start to the day, eh? The fun thing is that I get to do this every single morning and although Bad/Vague Cop recognises me every day, and will happily make conversation about what I was wearing three weeks ago last tuesday, or the bloke with the nice tie who I took there for lunch last June, she refuses blindly to apply that same photographic knowledge to my order, which is the same every single morning without fail, and has been for the last eighteen months, at least.
Marmite. Toast. Brown bread. Latte. No sugar. �1.95. I even have the right change ready. Sigh.
