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RIPOSTE
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LTSEWH
Call them Less Than Satisfying Encounters With
Humanity, or LTSEWH, for um, short. Names and places have been included wherever possible
to ensure fullest humiliation of subjects at hand.
LTSEWH # 1: SOUP NAZI
I was in the Souplantation, which I think is
pronounced "Soo Plantation," because it's cheap and I can load up on lots of
lousy dessert with names like "chocolate lava cake." It's the American way. Of
course, in order to get to the lava cake, I must first endure nutrients in the form of
soup and salad.
There I was, wretchedly ladling
chicken broth into my little bowl, fishing for hunks of boiled bird with a big spoon,
trying to avoid the ghastly, leaden noodles that go with it. This is a tricky proposition,
as Souplantation Soupengineers have carefully designed the broth to be scooped up with 90
percent noodles, and only token chicken.
Still, much practice has enabled me to deftly secure
desired avian, and then---still wielding the ladle---nudge unwelcome noodles right back
into the big pot! I was performing this very maneuver when---
"DON'T PUT NOODLE THERE, SIR!"
I looked up to see not John Belushi,
but a guy about six-five, and perhaps 300 pounds. Glaring.
"What?"
"DON'T PUT NOODLE BACK!"
The accent was Eastern European. The demeanor
was WWF. Two-day-old stubble; hairy, muscled arms; mono eyebrow.
"Uhhh. . .Don't put noodle back?"
Yes, Man Mountain took his
soup seriously. The poor fellow, it seemed, was trying to do his job properly, and
apparently had been warned about customers taking food, then putting it back. Presumably
he hadn't understood that this pertained to half-eaten items. Or perhaps he just took
exception to the fact that I refused to accept the ghastly, leaden noodles
that the Soupengineers wanted me to eat.
Still, being scolded by the help in a joint
where dinner is about $7.99 didn't set well with me. I rejected my first impulse, which
was to suggest that Mountain endeavor to experience extreme coital intimacy with himself.
I value my physical well being, lava cake notwithstanding.
So instead I smiled, and said,
"Say please!"
"WHAT?"
"Say. . .pleeeeaaase!"
I showed him many, many teeth.
He frowned and turned away in disgust.
We Americans are a crazy lot.
LTSEWH # 2: PLAYING POST OFFICE
The West L.A. post office is highly dependable.
That is, you can always depend on a line of at least twenty people, and as many as two
whole windows open for business. Mailing a single tiny package can be done in a spiffy,
quick-as-a-wink 40 minutes!
And don't try to cheat by weighing your
package and affixing your own postage, either! Why, it's liable to be returned to you for
being "suspicious," just as two such packages were returned to me. (Both
contained highly dangerous material---copies of my novel.)
So I took my inevitable place in line, resigned
to cashing in 40 minutes of my life for the privilege of picking up a package that
required a signature. I had come prepared with an L.A. Times, which I figured would be
good for at least ten minutes, if I didn't take too long on the funnies. So I stood there
with the world-weary: the working women on lunch breaks, fussing over customs forms; the
Filipina with a stack of packages for relatives back home; the mom with twins in stroller,
etc.
Fifteen minutes passed as people waited
longingly for one of the two clerks to utter those enchanting words, "may I help the
next person in line?" At twenty, I ran out of newspaper, having read sports twice,
and one of those commentaries about the economy that no one ever really understands. I
resorted to playing songs in my head, and foot-tapping, for the next ten minutes, then
just stood and sweated impatiently for another five.
And then. . .
"May I help the---"
I strode forward and boldly presented my yellow
slip for package pick-up. The clerk noted the slip, then promptly recited to everyone in
the room, in a voice as vivacious as a funeral director's:
"If you are just here to pick up a
package, please come to the front of the line."
My eyebrows went up, along with the corners of
my mouth.
"Uh. . .ma'am," I said
extra-politely, "If you had said that anytime in the last 35 minutes, you would have
saved me a lot of time."
No reply.
No eye contact.
No nothing.
She turned her back on me, retrieved the
package, handed it over without a word.
"Help the next person in line?"
LTSEWH # 3: PARKING COP-OUT
He was about 65, he was cheeful, he was chewing
gum. He seemed to like his job, which was to catch all those nasty, nasty parking
criminals who don't make it back to their meters in time. And never, never to
catch the fine, accomplished souls in Mercedes SUV's who park in red zones while they run
into Coffee Bean for a latte.
I saw him as I parked, and was
glad I had a quarter on hand, which I promptly plunked into the meter. I walked across the
street to Sav-On to make a quick purchase, and came back to find. . .
Parking cop writing me a ticket. Chewing gum,
smiling as I approached.
"Wait a second!" I said, "I just
put a quarter in there."
"Welp," he smiled, Andy
Griffith-like, "Meter's expired."
I looked. He was right.
"But that's impossible. I put
a quarter in there no more than eight minutes ago."
"Welp," he smiled again, and---I
swear---winked. "Sorry, sir, meter's expired."
"That can't be right. It must be broken.
Here, wait, let me put another quarter in."
I felt in my pockets in vain.
"Look, can you wait a second? I'll run
into McDonald's here and get change. Thirty seconds."
He smiled yet again, cocking his
head, and I sprinted into McDonald's, braving a crowd just released from a nearby high
school. Felt like I was walking the exercise yard at San Quentin. They eyed me tribally,
peering from beneath watch caps and behind great overcoats. Managed to extract change from
a dead-eyed McDonald's employee, and ran back outside.
"Here," I said, and slipped a quarter
into the meter.
Of course, it worked fine.
"But really---I'm not lying---I put a
quarter in there and it didn't work."
The old guy chewed his gum and gave me that
look that said "Yeah, I've heard this one a thousand times."
He winked once more as he handed me the ticket,
and---I kid you not---said, "Have a nice day, sir."
LTSEWH # 4: BOOK HER, DANNO
Put me and a nut in a roomfull of people, and I
guarantee you, the nut will talk only to me. It's happened all my life. They seek me out
like bats on mosquitoes.
It was the end of a lousy day, and I
just wanted to waste a few lousy minutes, quietly perusing lousy books in a lousy Barnes
and Noble. I wanted no conversation. I wanted no trouble from anyone. My soul was benign,
my spirit battered into a search for peace.
This, of course, made me a prime target.
She was well dressed, she was perhaps fifty,
she was African-American. I was none of the three. I noted her vaguely, peripherally,
paying no special attention until. . .
"Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Ignoring me. I see it
comin', yes I do. I see it. I've seen it all before. Mm-hm."
I tuned her out, my attention riveted
by such literature as "The Psychic Pathway: A Workbook for Reawakening the Voice of
Your Soul," and a lovely book about a noble circus elephant. Yet I was aware, as I
browsed pages, that the woman was still speaking, and that her tone was agitated,
accusative, loud enough to distract. This went on for a good five minutes---or, rather, a
bad five minutes. I further noted that other customers had moved away from her. Must be on
a cell-phone, I figured, and then committed an error that you never make with a nut:
Eye contact.
Nope. No cell phone. This was a one-way
conversation. Or perhaps two-way, depending on whoever else was in her head. I scowled.
Mistake number two.
"Mm-hm! There it is, there it is! Now it's
comin'. He's about to say the N-word! Here it comes! Come on, white boy! Let's hear
it!"
Folks, there are limits to my vast
sympathies, and this is where I encountered one.
"Listen, you worthless ass---, why don't
you just GO AWAY. You come in here, disturbing people, when no one is bothering you. You
are a negative. A subtraction. A force of evil. So why don't you just get the ---- out of
here."
And miracle of miracles, she did!
LTSEWH # 5: I GET A KICK OUT OF DRIVING
She should have known better. After all, she
was around 60, extremely well coiffured, and driving a new Lexus. There was zero
need to tailgate on an empty sidestreet at 5 in the afternoon. Particularly to tailgate a
beat-up old tin can driven by a rumpled freelance writer doing the speed limit on a short
block.
Yet she insisted. Right on the bumper.
No more than a foot away. Perhaps she'd had a bad experience with a freelance writer. An
ex-husband, perhaps. . .
I turned around and waved Old Coiffure away.
No response. Zzzzp---right on my
bumper.
Now what, I wondered, was this woman doing? Did
she imagine that she might reach the next stop sign 1.5 seconds sooner? My mind filled
with the vision of an old journalism colleague, crippled for life after being rear-ended
at slow speed. So I slowed down, gradually, then turned and waved her off again.
She saw this clearly.
No response.
I speeded up again, and so did she. No
more than a foot away, once more.
Gasp. Maybe a freelance writer once
sat on her poodle, Froo-Froo.
I slowed a second time, and yelled out the
window "Stop tailgating, goddamn it!" which caught the attention of several
onlookers---but not Lexus lady. At last, I came to a complete stop, turned around, and
waved her away one last time.
Yes, you knew it was coming: tailgate party
resumed.
I was left with no recourse but suicide, but
instead opted to stop and get out. I approached her, repeating my request in a voice not
quite loud enough to be heard in, say, Utah:
"Stop tailgating me, you goddamn old
bag!"
Finally, it registered. The message
penetrated the thick Lexus windows, the thick swirly gray coiffure, the thick skull. And
the message said:
"MANIAC!"
Up went her window. Shut went her sun roof.
And, I hope, wet went her underwear.
Old Coiffure floored it, barely missing me and
my car as she zoomed into the (fortunately empty) oncoming traffic lane.
Not before I managed to kick what I hope was a
fair-sized dent in her. . .tailgate.
For more LTSEWH's, watch this space.
