In Falling Down, a 1993 Hollywood flick starring Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall, William Foster (played by Douglas) is a frustrated, recently retrenched engineer who is estranged from his wife. On a particularly hot day in LA a series of run-ins prompt him to sardonically interrogate (assault rifle in hand) his society's norms, rampant commercialism and that favourite obsession of the naartjie-coloured toddler in the White House, the American way of life.
There is one scene that particularly resonated with me. Feeling a little peckish after an encounter with a bunch of violent gangbangers, Foster saunters into a fast-food outlet at 11h32 and orders breakfast. A perky meal and beverages co-ordinator called Sheila tells him they stopped serving breakfast at 11h30. After an altercation with her gap-toothed manager Rick, Foster whips out the Uzi and gently persuades them to serve him breakfast.
I cannot count the number of times I've wished I had the cojones to carry an Uzi into eating establishments, but I have had to rely instead on loud tantrums, subtle insults and good ole sarcasm to convey to restaurants my disapproval of their rules.I have asked, "Do you have eggs in your pantry?" ("Yes"). "Do you have bacon?" ("Yes"). "Do you have tomatoes?" ("Yes, but you don't understand ...")
Actually, I do understand. In my previous life I used to slave for the food service unit of Unilever, in a technical capacity. I literally spent hundreds of hours "at the back", with chefs and fryers. I have more than just a cursory appreciation of the difficulties and technical complexities of preparing scrambled eggs and pork bangers in the middle of preparing a salmon, prawn and avo salad, while simultaneously attempting to straddle the balance between medium-rare and medium-well wet-aged sirloin.When I first came to live in Johannesburg in '94, I used to hang out in the Yeoville, Berea and Hillbrow area quite a lot. There was a quaint restaurant/pub on the corner of Pretoria and Claim called Café Three Sisters that I loved almost as much as I loved the Yard of Ale in the Market Theatre precinct. The manager of the place totally understood the psyche of the patron.
My Sunday ritual included three to four hours at that place, catching up on my Sunday papers and reading a novel. The manager very quickly picked up on the fact that I seemed to have no appetite by the time I arrived there. He was correct. I used to have a meal at the Nando's just down the street and then go to Café Three Sisters for drinks. A victim of my Durban palate and the need for chilli, you see.
So he told me that if I didn't enjoy their food offerings, I could always just come there and order my Nando's via one of their runners while I ordered copious amounts of sangria from their bar. In fact, he told me that if I wanted cigarettes, a CD from the Look & Listen down the street or anything else short of fellatio, I should just let him know.
It is therefore with a heavy heart that I type this, in the "Let's grab as much of their money as possible, while giving them the least we can give them and then toss them out into the street" era.
The era of a friend joining you at your table after they had a meal elsewhere and being told they can't bring a takeaway box from another establishment onto the premises.
The era of steaks coming draped in butter cheese sauce despite you specifically asking for no sauce because "the chef says this steak comes with sauce". The era of being told that you are going to have mushrooms with your meal despite telling them that you despise mushrooms.
But it is also possible that because of the shallowness of my pocket, I'm eating at all the wrong places...