"For here or to go?" It is a simple question really, one that I answered many times without ever giving thought to just what it could come to mean. More often than not I answered "to go", never realizing that my very words were being collected and concentrated like drops of caustic venom in a mad scientist's laboratory to one day be spit back in my face, much like a cobra spits into the eyes of an aggressor, or, more aptly, like a mother bird poisons its chicks with her deadly regurgitation.
And what, you ask, might be the first course? A chilled plate of Cold-Blooded Convenience, followed by the new house special: leg of Shattered Expectations slathered in Woebegone sauce.
Apparently proper human decency and Christian love are no longer on the menu at the Point Break Cafe. That's right, the sandwich bar is gone. Gone are the pickles, cucumbers, onions and mushrooms. Gone is the hopeful twinkle I saw in my roommate's eye every time he branched out and ordered roast beef on rye instead of turkey on wheat. Ah, turkey on wheat--our once rapturous and tear-filled reunions have been reduced to the businesslike formality of a trip to the cafeteria; what once was a welcoming path to your delicious embrace is no longer a through street.
This parting took place some time ago, but it was a wound too great and too deep to be treated when it was first dealt. And like the bloody carnage wrought by a bullet must be suppressed by morphine and a torn bed sheet while the enemy presses in, the necessity of moving on forced me to treat my pain with a half-felt joke and a cup of Yoplait.
Well, the healing powers in a serving of dairy only last so long, and as I begin to peel back the blood caked bandages and swab my wound with pre-made ham on croissant, I feel as if buying PBC credit was like investing $150 in a bank that switched from dollars to wampum or in a chicken that switched from eggs to grandma's old L'eggs.
Oh how I long for a second chance, just one more opportunity to answer that ancient question with the knowledge that I now possess. "For Here!" I would shout it to the heavens. I would tear my shirt and beat my breast, pour ashes on my head for another chance to have a freshly made sandwich from the PBC. But for now I can only fill out a comment card from time to time and return to my fruitless search to find something that will fill this provolone-shaped hole in my heart.
4 comments:
"to go" in Spanich is "para llavar."
Thank you.
Gracias.
And Spanich is very similar to Spanish.
I laughed, i didn't cry, but i loved it through and through. I feel as though i've lost uncountable hours wasting away in front of my New York Time's Best Seller after reading this literary gold. The English language ain't got nothin' on you, pal.
Hoping you get this aaannd go, I know who you are, and I want you to reply to my email, and I want you.
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