For Here or To Go?

The number of choices I have to make in a day has risen exponentially. Even going into a restaurant taxes the brain cells.

"You can order off our regular menu or our Diner's Specials. And on the back is our Weight Watchers menu too. Your choice. OK, you want the steak. Great! Do you want that cooked rare, medium rare, medium, medium well, or well done? You can have steak fries, cottage fries, French fries, or plain old fried potatoes with that. Unless you want the vegetable of the day, which is a choice between a squash/carrot medley, green beans almondine, or broccoli rice casserole. You get either soup or salad with that. Salad? OK. What kind of dressing? We have ranch, thousand island, Italian, honey mustard, raspberry vinaigrette, Russian, or Venezuelan Beaver Cheese bleu cheese dressing. While you're waiting on your order, we have two TVs for you to watch. You have a choice between watching twenty-two guys beat each other to a pulp playing football, or a woman cheating on her husband in "As the Stomach Turns." You can have your beverage of choice in a cylindrical glass or one with four corners. You can use a straw, or not. We want you to have a hand-picked, tailor-made, customized restaurant experience with us. Unless you'd rather not. Your choice."

I wonder if we get so many choices about nonessentials to obscure the lack of choice about many essentials. We do not get to decide that we want our infrastructure refurbished and our schools (all of them, not just wealthy suburban ones) adequately funded before we start wars. People with little money in the inner cities are not free to choose better schools for their children. Many of us do not get to choose hospitalization without the danger of bankruptcy. Getting prescription drugs from Canada where they are cheaper? Forget it.

But we can have our burgers with or without fries, or get fruit salad instead. It is completely up to us.

Day-Off Reminiscences

When the present gets difficult, I retreat unashamedly to nostalgia. Given the popularity of old Westerns in this town, I am not the only one. As the economy has gotten worse, more people seem to gather around the TV at Garcia's Restaurant to watch Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and The Virginian. I try to keep it in perspective though. In the 1950s and 1960s things may have seemed more stable, but we also had the Korean War and Vietnam. And children hiding under their school desks during atomic drills. Duck and Cover, everyone!

As an antidote to fantasy nostalgia about the good old days, I recalled today the bad old days at my first job, Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips. I was a high school senior at the time. The year was 1976. Arthur Treacher's was located in a suburb on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio. I was the worst Counter Girl that Arthur's had ever seen. I could not even keep my orange and green checkered headscarf on straight. But I eventually developed a passable skill level and managed not to get fired. I also learned much about life there.

My manager Laurie Perkowski had a boyfriend called Jimmie Tedesko. Laurie was nineteen, with strawberry blond hair and freckles. Jimmie was a fine upstanding character who was wanted by the IRS for tax evasion. Laurie and the assistant manager, Jeff, told us that if Jimmie was in the back room with Laurie (making out) and someone walked in and asked if Jimmie was there, we were to lie and say no. After all, it might be undercover law enforcement coming to arrest him. I will never forget the night Jimmie and Laurie had a fight. Laurie had to go to work and left Jimmie at her house to cool off. The next thing that happened was Jimmie calling Arthur Treacher's to tell Laurie that he had her car and was going to total it. All I recall is waiting on customers and hearing Laurie's tearful voice in the background, "Jimmie! Jimmie! I'm so afraid of you!" Jimmie was a bigot too. He called women of color "Sugar-Boogers" and that was one of the nicer epithets he used for those of other races. Jimmie really needed someone to feel superior to.

Jeff, the assistant manager, was a real angel as well. He made dope deals over the same phone Jimmie used to torment Laurie. Jeff was the top marijuana salesman in town. I used to wonder how he paid for such a fancy sports car on an assistant manager's salary. Now I know.

Years later, one of my pastoral colleagues recalled how drug-laden the 1970s were. We were having American Indian Awareness worship services at that time and burning a lot of sage during worship in a tribal circle. My colleague Sam cracked, "Kids, this is what a Steppenwolf concert smells like."