meish dot org: life, unfolding

Referring to a chicken breast granary bap, and in response to the question “You want salad, lady?” what does the phrase “just lettuce, thanks” mean to you?

a) Just lettuce, no other salad
b) No lettuce, but loads of other salad
c) Loads of salad, including lettuce
d) No salad at all
e) No lettuce, no cucumber, but about eighty tomato slices
f) No lettuce, no salad, but some Branston Pickle

Answers on a warm ciabatta…

Curious things seen on the brief trip to the Deli-from-helli to get lunch: (#84 in an ongoing series)

Opposite the deli, there’s a BT service van, with a card stuck on the window which reads “visiting 142a Grazelle Road,” but in the front seat is a man in a uniform with his feet up on the dashboard.

And he’s playing a bass guitar. He’s really giving it some, as well: Big ba-dooooow-ing in a Mark King style. The windows are shut so I can’t hear if he’s playing along to something or whether this is a solo, but when I leave the sandwich shop, five minutes later, he’s still going strong.

This raises the following questions:

1. Does this man actually work for BT, or is he along for the ride?
2. If he works for BT, does he bring along his bass guitar whenever he’s out on a job?
3. Are there, in fact, a trio of musicians in the back of the van, backing him up on guitar, drums and keyboards?

The world is a strange place.

Nightmarishly busy day.

There was a woman on the bus from High Street Ken today, with big frizzy hair, noomeeja specs and a postbox red woollen coat. She sat down next to me, carrying too many bags covered in too many designer labels, and rummaged around in the smallest one, the brown one, for her bus pass. She flashed it at the conductor briefly, and then stopped as she noticed a slip of paper sticking out of the back – she unfolded it, and I peered nosily to the right to catch a glimpse.

It said, in an unmistakeably italian hand (ever noticed how certain European nations have immediately identifiable handwriting?):

Bongiorno, Bumpkin

Have a nice day xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The words were surrounded with cartoon hearts drawn hastily on this, the back of a bank statement.

The woman with the giant frizzy hair looked at it for a moment, and smiled, before folding it carefully twice, and then ripping it into small papery bits, which she placed in the outside pocket of another bag – the beige one, the largest.

Later, in the Armenian Deli from Helli, Bad Cop was having a go at the others, shouting at them passionately as she cleaned the cappuccino machine, and the others made up pre-packed sandwiches for the lunchtime rush.

Good Cop shook her head and shouted back. Nice Man interrupted, and Bad Cop yelled at him again, in Armenian, but containing the unmistakeable phrase (forgive my muffled grasp of armenian):

“Effeffeffeffeffeffeff effeffe eefffefeffefffefefefe Tony Blair ef ef efefefefefef eff efef!”

To which Good Cop replied:

“Ack ack ack ack ef ef ef ef ef Bin Laden ek ek ek ek eff ef Bush ef ef efefefefefef Taleban!”

I felt bad for assuming they’d been arguing about that morning’s croissant delivery, and even worse when Bad Cop handed my my latte, without my even having to ask.

1. There’s a guy walking down the road swigging from a plastic Coke bottle. He’s got one hand on the bottle and the other on his crotch, for reasons I don’t fully understand except that he might also be holding his trousers up – they’re so low-slung and capacious I can see the bottom of his boxer shorts. He takes one last mighty swig from the bottle and then throws it – not even just a quiet drop – off into someone’s front garden.

   For a moment, I’m tempted to repeat the action my mother must have done a thousand times when I was a kid.

   She’d see someone dropping a crisp packet or can in the street, then she’d pick it up, run over to them (well, trot – mums don’t run, do they?) and say “I think you dropped this.”

   The litterbug (one of my first words, I’m proud to state) would be so embarrassed by being presented with their litter by a white-haired little woman (mum went entirely grey by thirty-two – it’s genetic, and I’m heading in that direction too. Well, sometimes, in the wrong light), they’d usually just meekly take it and then pop it in the next bin, when they thought mum wasn’t looking anymore.

   I used to have puzzled toddler conversations with her afterwards, tugging on her sleeve:
   “He didn’t drop it, he was throwing it away…”
   “I know”
   “…then why did you pick it up?”

   So for a moment, I’m tempted to repeat this procedure with the boy in the low-slung trousers and the bandana, and then I notice that he’s bigger than me, and I’d end up looking like a loony. So I don’t.

2. Then I’m in the deli, getting lunch, and the new boy is preparing my jacket potato with tuna sweetcorn. He’s young and chatty and laughing with one of the other guys behind the counter, and just as he’d closing the polystyrene case on my spud, Bad Cop (remember her? “What you want, lady?”) spits something at him in Armenian and he rolls his eyes and, using tongs, unloads half the filling from the potato which is now 98% potato and 2% tuna. Not a favourable ratio.

   I raise my eyebrows and Bad Cop won’t even meet my glare. I go in there every day and she’s stiffing me. I hope she wisely invests the 0.4p she managed to save by unloading my baked potato.

3. A South African man with a big floppy quiff is ordering a very complex lunch. He’s got a real physical presence – his chest is puffed up and it feels like he’s taking up too much space. Every time the girl behind the counter checks a bit of the order, he sighs heavily and confirms in a patronising and snappy tone:

   “…you want mayonnaise on the ham bap?”
   “[sigh] Yes, I want mayonnaise, that’s what I said, wasn’t it?”
   “…and the coronation chicken is on ciabatta?”
   “[siiiigh] Yes, ciabatta, I already told you that, for god’s sake”
   “…would you like the quiche heated up?”
   “[sigh] Well, obviously, yes. Christ almighty.”

   How hard is it to be even vaguely courteous? What gives him the right to be such a needle-dick?

4. There’s this bloke at the counter, paying for his lunch. He’s just ahead of me in the queue – I know this because he made me decide not to have a sandwich today: while deliberating what to have himself, he managed to cough all over the pizza and prod eight baguettes, not to mention getting his head right into the salad bar and breathing. A lot. So I had a potato.

   Then after he has paid he walks off, leaving his bottle of water on the counter. So I shout after him “excuse me; you forgot your water!” and he comes back, grabs it and says “I don’t want any water”.

   The man behind the counter (Penry, the mild mannered janitor) tells him that he was charged for it, and the bloke takes the water and walks away without a word. I shout after him, “you’re welcome!” which sometimes gets me into trouble, but not today, because he’s already gone.

And for the love of all things reasonable, can someone please tell me what the point of flimsy, floppy plastic forks is, if they bend and flex every time you try to get a forkful of baked potato – and then catapult the contents onto your screen or into your hair or across the room? Gah!

Can I just point out for the record (and for any Armenian deli-owners in the audience) that yesterday’s yummy pasta-and-herb salad with olive oil left out to dry overnight and then glooped unevenly this morning with mayonnaise does not make for a brand new pasta salad?

It makes for yellowed mayonnaise with crunchy bits in it.

Hrrmph.

To my utter bemusement, when I walked into the Armenian deli this morning at the usual time, Bad Cop behind the counter thrust into my hands a bag containing brown toast with marmite and a chocolate croissant and a paper cup containing a medium latte. And charged me the right money for it, too.

That’s the order she’s been getting wrong every morning for the last two years. The order I’ve been asking for every morning for two years.

I wonder if she suffered some kind of head trauma last night?

Two things which are not necessarily related:

1. Next door to the Armenian deli I frequent for lunch, there is a beauty salon which has just started offering Brazilian Bikini Waxes. I know this, because they have advertised this fact by putting a large poster in the window.
2. Today, there was a hair in my taboulleh.

To: Armenian deli-from-helli across the road from the office
From: Meg Pickard, loyal customer (mornings: latte/marmite on toast, lunchtimes: mineral water/salad/baguette) AKA “Lady”
Subject: GREEK SALAD
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Hi (lady),

I just got some of your ‘greek salad’ to go with my cheese baguette this lunchtime. It looked so yummy in the chiller cabinet, I just had to have some.

Now, I realise you’re Armenian, not Greek. I’m not Greek either. But I know a thing or two about Greek Salad, namely that the aforementioned salad should not contain

• mushrooms (!!!)
• avocado (!!)
• sun dried tomatoes (no!)
• mozarella cheese (!!!!) or
• hair (eck!)

Just thought you might like a bit of friendly customer feedback. Oh, incidentally, you overcharged me, too. Again.

Not to worry, though.

Meg. xxx

p.s. I think it’s a definite sign you need a holiday when you start having strange dreams about Okinawa dragons and the bloke behind the cash register at your local sandwich emporium.

Update, later:
Jen, a kind reader, wrote to let me know that next time I’m screwed round by the deli-from-helli (see below) I could liberally employ the Armenian word “Esh-egg” (phonetic transcription), which roughly translates as jackass.

I think I’d probably end up with yak shit on my toast if I did, though.

Mind you, yak shit… marmite…. what’s the difference, frankly?

I’m suffering from Marmite overload. My mouth is rebelling.

I didn’t think it was possible, but I have quite simply had too much marmite on toast over the last few days, and my poor gums are screaming for mercy.

Bad-cop in the deli-from-helli has launched a personal and vociferous attack on my tastebuds this week. Every slice of toast she makes me is slathered with thick black goo – but I don’t complain, because I’m just amazed and pleased to be getting marmite and bread in any combination whatsoever, given that she usually offers me chicken salad on a toasted bagel or ricotta and hummus on ciabatta in response to my morning toast request.

But of course marmite on toast for breakfast is one thing. Marmite on toast for dinner is quite another: how very student! And marmite on toast in bed is a definite no-no – even if someone else makes it for you: the crumbs get everywhere.

1. Woke up periodically throughout the night, convinced that something was missing, and that I was going to sleep through my alarm clock. As a consquence, I was so tired I nearly did just that.
2. Went through five clean white T-shirts, because I managed to stain the left sleeve of every single one in succession by reaching across my desk for earrings. The sleeves were stained bright orange yellow with asiatic lily pollen (gorgeous flowers, though). Mental note: that stuff does not come out (*thumps head on keyboard repeatedly*) Eventually opted for black t-shirt instead. Reached for earrings across desk. Did precisely the same thing again. Stain doesn’t show. Result.
3. Standing on the platform at Willesden Junction, a girl aged about twenty is pacing in front of me. She’s wearing cropped trousers and a pale blue shirt, and her hair is straightened and coloured red. Her brown skin shines with oil in the weak morning sunlight. She paces backwards and forwards, at one end of the platform, muttering quietly to herself, gesticulating with quick fingers. She stops suddenly, reaches into her shoulder bag and pulls out a copy of The Tempest. Dog-eared and worn, she flicks through its soft yellowing pages, reads for a second and then replaces the book in her bag. She resumes her walk to nowhere, gesticulating and muttering urgently. The storm, the storm.
4. Walking the streets of West Kensington around Olympia with fresh eyes, I shudder as I cross the road to the post office to buy a TV licence. Everything looks new.
5. In the Armenian deli-from-helli, I simply couldn’t be bothered with the effort of ordering coffee. This caused great concern and nagging from EvilCop, who seems to think I have upset her morning routine in some way. Eventually, I relent and ask for the usual medium latte. She gives me a large hot chocolate. I do not complain.
6. The trees outside my office window have all turned beautifully green during my week off. From my desk, it’s like standing in front of a chlorophyll sea, the tops of tall trees swaying in polluted air.