Honey and I like a restaurant in the heat pit they call the Valley that we both refer to as "Fancy." Fancy is not. It is a really good Mexican restaurant, the older, but smaller sister to another really good Mexican restaurant right around the corner. (I'm trying to give Valley/L.A. people a hint about location).
Fancy has seven or eight tables inside and another six or so outside. The food is reasonably priced, fresh, and good.
Fancy? Not really. Your order from the counter, get your salsa in little plastic buckets, and they call out your number in Spanish and English. The folks who work there are nice and it's one of those L.A. places where people from all sorts of cultural backgrounds sit next to one another, including those who by birth should know good Mexican food. It's next to an express lube place. Why do we call it Fancy? Because it is. To us.
Fancy is on the way home from work for me and since Honey has been commuting by bike, I've been trying to take up more of the cooking slack. My two choices tonight were cooking fish and picking up Fancy.
So, I walk into Fancy and there's a line. I get in it and stand for a few minutes as it inches forward. Then out of nowhere, a young woman in truly ridiculous shoes steps in front of me and says, "I was in line."
I look at her in shock and amazement. "You were?"
She gestures impatiently behind me. "Yes, I was over there."
I turn to look and realize that she had been sitting (though I did not and could not have seen her) in a chair five feet away from the end of the line hidden behind a stack of high chairs.
"You were sitting there?"
"Yes and that was how I was in line."
I glance down at my feet (clad today in Teva sandals) to think for a second and notice that she is wearing five inch teeny spike white high heeled sandals.
Now, what I want to say is:
"If you didn't have on those stupid shoes, you could actually STAND in line like the rest of us."
What I actually say (trying to sound deeply contemptuous):
"Oh."
I'm so brave in my head.
Fancy still tasted terrific and Honey enjoyed her tostada without ever having to see those stupid shoes. The sacrifices I make for love. It's how I'm so brave. In my head.
4 comments:
I have encountered many similar moments in my life where I have been brave in my head.
And while I may own a pair or two of ridiculous shoes myself, I'd not wear them anyplace I couldn't wear them!
Oh, yes, being brave in my head, I know it well. Lately, though, I've been a little more emotionally volatile than I'd like and have therefore had no problem telling rude losers off for real. What I would like to be right now isn't so much brave in my head as smart in my expression.
That lady didn't deserve fancy food.
If the lady wanted to be counted as "standing" in line, she should have dragged the chair over to keep her place. Otherwise, she wasn't in line, thankyouverymuch, no matter what passed through her brain approximating thought.
Oh sure, like you're one to talk about stupid shoes... ;)
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