...So Good, They Named it Twice
I’m not a person given to sentimentality, but as long as I live I doubt that I’ll ever forget the first time I had lunch in Manhattan.
Newly arrived from Ireland, and still jet-lagged from my flight the previous day, I asked a fellow ex-pat in my work-place for advice on where to eat. According to my new colleague, there was a deli just a short walk down the block. “You can’t miss it,” he assured me. And how right he was: it would have been easier to overlook a pride of feeding lions than to walk past the queue of hungry New Yorkers standing in line at the deli.
I took my place among the noisy, boisterous ranks and waited my turn. As the queue moved towards the counter, I picked out ‘Roast Beef Sandwich’ from the menu on the wall. It seemed like a safe enough bet…
“Next!”
Before I knew it, I had reached the front of the line. I stepped up to the counter and, in my most polite manner, asked for a roast beef sandwich.
The guy behind the counter cupped a hand behind his ear and informed the greater part of mid-town Manhattan that he couldn’t hear a word, (or, to be strictly accurate, a “woid”), I was saying. It took several attempts to make myself understood, but finally he got the message: I wanted a roast beef sandwich, pure and simple. Except, of course, that it wasn’t.
The deli guy waited. I waited. The queue behind me waited. Finally, he spread his hands in exasperation and demanded: “On what?”
I was impressed. I had expected to receive my sandwich in a standard issue, brown paper bag, but now it appeared there were other options available.
On a paper plate would be fine, I told him.
“Aw jeeze, a wiseguy! On what kinda BREAD, dummy?”
As my jaw sagged, he raced through a catalog of choices. I recognized white, rye and whole-wheat, but pumpernickel completely floored me – I thought pumpernickel was a character from a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm – and from there on, he lost me completely.
When the recitation ended, I asked for white. His eyes rolled heavenward in disgust.
“Whaddya want onnit?” he next wanted to know, before bestowing on me the soubriquet “knucklehead” – quite unnecessarily, in my opinion. Once again, I was at a loss for words, and once again he machine-gunned me with a list of options: mayo, tomayto, onion, cheese, lettuce…
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