Words and Thoughts — January 5, 2024
Hello again, alleged readers! Let me tell you, it’s been a hell of a week. As you probably know, Darla, the cashier at my work cafeteria and I don’t always see eye to eye. “Stav, you can’t pay with forks I just watched you take out of the fork dispenser,” she’ll tell me. “Stav, you can’t put those forks back, especially into the spoon dispenser.” “Stav, please don’t try to hide the forks in your mouth.” “Stav, please don’t try to hide the forks under a pile of ketchup.” “Stav, please stop dispensing ketchup.”
While it’s nice to be allowed in the cafeteria again unsupervised, Darla, frankly, most of the time I’d rather eat out of the dumpster in the parking lot than in your prison of a cafeteria. However, most of the time the dumpster is locked. The next best option is the salad bar. The salad bar has many options, however I only care about one: the bacon bits. Based on all of my experience with Darla’s hangups, arbitrary rules, and the time Darla wouldn’t let me buy the entire serving tub of bacon bits off the salad bar, I determined that I’d need to exercise some creativity to get the right amount of bacon bits at lunch.
Many months ago, I purchased a plate, heaped with lettuce, and asked Darla, “Is this a salad?”. To which Darla replied, “Yes”. The next day, I returned, wearing the same clothes so as to maintain as much environmental stability around Darla as possible, and purchased a plate heaped with lettuce, and a single bacon bit added. “Darla, is this a salad?” I asked. “Yes,” was again Darla’s response. The next day, same clothes, another heap of lettuce (although slightly less lettuce), and a couple of bacon bits. Still a salad! The plan was in motion!
For months, wearing the same clothes, returning at the same time every day, I would slightly decrease the lettuce, and increase the bacon bits by three or four bits. Every day, the same exasperated response from Darla, “Yes Stav, that is a salad.” Well, this week, after months of having to pick lettuce off my plate, and place it into my co-worker’s desk drawer (so as not to arouse suspicion by throwing the lettuce away at my desk obviously), only to be left with scant few bacon bits, I just couldn’t endure the long-play any longer. It was time to go all in!
At the usual time, wearing the usual clothes, I strode into the cafeteria. I grabbed a plate. Heart racing, adrenaline pumping. I removed the soup ladle from the Italian Wedding soup, and walked over to the salad bar. Standing for just a brief second, soup ladle in hand, dripping soup, just in awe of the tub of bacon bits, barely touched, laid out before me. With the force of 10,000 exploding suns, I thrust the soup ladle into the sea of bacon bits. Like a vast fishing net being hauled in, filled to the limit with fish made of bacon, I emptied the ladle onto my plate. Again, I plunged the ladle into the bacon bit tub, screeching with anticipation, scattering wayward bacon bits into the garbanzo beans to the left and onto the cherry tomatoes to the right. Many more times I would return the ladle into the seemingly endless depths of the bacon bit tub until my plate would hold not another, singular, bacon bit.
Now, with my shirt ripped in a few spots from months of endless wear, bits of bacon in my hair from the chaos, and slightly out of breath, I approached the cashier, ready to claim victory.
Alas, Darla was not there! Darla is apparently now out on medical leave because of her bunions. In Darla’s place was some other, not-Darla, person. I had no rapport built with this not-Darla. I had no hope.
I had nothing.
The adrenaline gave way to unadulterated despair. I began to weep. With nothing left to lose, I approached the cashier and placed my plate, full of bacon bits, on the scale, and asked out of sheer force of habit, through my intermittent sobbing, “Is… this… a… salad?”
Not-Darla barely looked up from her phone. Not-Darla didn’t answer me. Not-Darla simply glanced at the computer screen, cracked her gum, and read me the total.
Trembling, with bacon bits falling out of my hair here and there, I swiped my card. The machine chirped its approval, and I whispered, “thank you”. Not-Darla didn’t acknowledge my thanks, but it mattered not. I stared at my 2.46 lbs. of bacon bits.
I had everything.
Later that afternoon I threw up in the drawer where I had been putting the lettuce. That was a lot of bacon bits.