A Little Something

I went out on a date this week, if you can call it that. All it was really was dinner. We knew each other quite well, and both of us had the taste for a certain cuisine from a very popular place. It was bound to be crowded at the dinner hour, we knew it would be. And it was. But nonetheless, we were game.

This establishment has a particular and rigid system in place regarding ordering. One line at a counter. For everything. To pick up take out. To eat in. Get a beverage. Whatever. A single line that delivers customers to the register one at a time like a gum-ball machine. You line up and wait your turn. No wiggle room to the method. There are tables, but no table service. Servers bring the carefully prepared items over to you when ready, but the only way to obtain food is to place and pay for an order when it comes your turn.

This brings me to the point of all this. The other night, on our “date”, I went up to order for us and it’d be fair to say there were half a dozen or so people ahead of me. Suddenly, a guy sidles up to the counter, we could all see it coming, and it wasn’t made any better by the fact he had his AirPods in, but anyway, he leans in- well, first he shut his music, angles in and then says, to all of us, “I placed my order before and got served already but forgot something, would you mind if I just slip in and add a little something?”

As you can imagine, this didn’t go over too well. There were probably nine of us queued up by now in a tight space, nothing was moving fast though the staff was working hard, and this prince wants to insert himself and bypass everyone because he hankered for another nibble, as an afterthought. We were all hungry. That didn’t help his cause any. When his general pitch didn’t fly, he puts his focus on a kindly looking woman ahead of me, near the front, and appeals directly to her. What she said to him was pretty badass, she says, and emphatically so, “Oh God, do not make me the decider of your destiny!”

That stunned him a bit. He seemed flummoxed but was intending to persevere. He looked next at me, and I was dead eyed. To put it mildly. His whole deal did not seem very worthy of sympathy or support. He then went to the man behind me, and that guy might as well have been Bill Belichick on a bad day for the look he gave. “Do you not see this line?” That was all he said, all that needed saying. The twit then switched on his music and retreated.

This was a real episode. I couldn’t help but think of a certain public figure who is now pushy for exemptions, evasions, and outrageous exceptions. I know it’s not an accurate comparison. One, an indulgent doofus inveigling trifles, the other a perpetrator of ultimate criminality that sucks at the marrow of the republic’s integrity. Yet there is something in common. Privilege? Cluelessness? I was glad everyone at dinner held the line and didn’t succumb to shenanigans. I can only hope the justices show the same steadfast resolve we did, though I’m not confident that’ll be the case. Anything less than total rebuff would be a travesty.