Author’s Note: I am running this post today in honor of Bastille Day. Sometimes a guy just has to take a stand.
My brother Kenny and my sister-in-law Mary Lu were in New York City recently for the Tony Awards. ML is a Broadway producer and she had a horse in this year’s race- Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It had already won the Critic’s Outer Circle Award and the Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Play, and it was heavily-favored for the hat trick Tony.
(Tony Award Show skinny: They had killer seats. Smack dab in the middle- and right behind Tom Hanks. Kenny was five feet away from Mike Tyson. “Niiiccceee!” As Iron Mike said in The Hangover. WAOVW went on to win for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Revival. Bravo, ML.)
But on game day Sunday, as veterans of many Antoinette Perry Theater Wing festivities, Kenny and Mary Lu knew it was going to be a long time before they saw any post-award show nourishment. So they hied themselves over to Pick-A-Bagel on 8th Avenue for a mid-afternoon nosh.
It was the Sunday afternoon lunch rush and madness reigned. Countermen were frantically taking and filling orders at the speed of New York Power and Light. Mary Lu went to grab a table.
Soon it was Kenny’s turn.
Sidebar: By way of heredity and environment, Kenny is an honorary New Yorker. Our grandmother hailed from the Big Apple, and although she moved to Chicago when she was fifteen, old habits- and habitats- die hard.
Though she lived in Chicago for the next eighty-six years, (not a typo. She died at 101.) Grandmother never lost one sçintilla of her NYC edge. And she taught us that when you were in a food line, you promptly stepped up to the plate and immediately stated your business. No shilly-shallying. You never held up traffic.
So Kenny knew the drill.
“Next!”
“I’ll have a California Cobb Salad wrap, please. With bacon.”
The harried counterman eyed him indifferently.
“We’re out of avocado. No avocado today.”
“Fine,” said my always-amenable brother. “No avocado. No problem.”
But as he stood there, docilely waiting for his order, he spotted it.
An avocado lying on the chopping block.
“Excuse me. But there’s an avocado over there. Please put some in my wrap, ok?”
“Can’t. Store policy is avocado for phone orders only.”
WTF?
Kenny was baffled by this logic. As much as he hates to be a pain in the ass, he also learned from our chowhound of a grandma that no one jacks his wrap.
Ever.
“Wait a minute. Are you telling me that you’re going to put that avocado on a sandwich for some guy who’s calling over the phone rather than take care of a customer who is standing here right in front of you?”
Some shrugs from the now-pissed off counterman.
And by now the line was getting restive. Murmurs and catcalls of “Hurry it up, Bud,” were starting to become audible behind him.
“Put some of that avocado on my wrap,” instructed Kenny. “Or do I have go across the street to the grocery store and buy one?”
A Mexican Stand-off Glaring Contest.
And hordes of hungry Big Apple lunchers were growing violent.
But my normally mild-mannered Clark Kent of a brother had turned into Super(Deli)Man. He stood his guacamole ground.
With a huge sigh of surly reluctance, the counterman complied. He begrudgingly made Kenny his wrap with the precious “phone-orders-only” avocado.
Kenny had carried the day. But at what price? The absurdity and rudeness of the situation had thoroughly annoyed him. Now he was on a mission to settle the score.
There was only one revenge good enough for such egregious customer non-service.
He helped himself to his usual can of Diet Dr. Pepper from the cooler. Then he purposefully strode over to the table and plunked it down in front of Mary Lu. Then he made his way back over to the cashier and “forgot” to pay for it.
Yes, Kenny had just stolen a $1.25 can of soda from Pick-A-Bagel. He had swiped it in the name of Justice.
(And Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine.)
Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé.
