Cheap Eats By L.E. Leone
A Beautiful Mind HEY, HALFWAY into Poo Poo Pride Month and so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. In fact, the only non-overwhelmingly positive feedback I've e-received recently was some kindly worded constructive criticism from a concerned grammarian. Bless his big heart, open mind, and red pen, this brand new fan of mine or else excellent joker (either way I love him) apparently cared not an iota that I was writing about a 36-inch doo doo in the food section. No, what caught his eye and compelled him to write to me was my illgrammatical malusage of the contraction "would've" for "would have," spelled like I spell it: "would of," as in "I wish I would of taken a picture of [my 36-inch doo doo]." This is beautiful. Among other things, it inspires me to extrapolate. Or is the right word imagine? If I continue at my current rate to find innovatively idiotic ways to butcher the English language, by the time I reach retirement age, in 2028, a representative passage from Cheap Eats might look something like this: Lofalofa-lulu goes yodel-eh-hee-boo-hoo over are chicken up and/or kickin over unnational cousins when a'long we could of et er, acause acourse on account've us boaf loafin chickens much as we boaf do. Loaf chickens, that's. (The italics are mine.) Factoring in Alzheimer's, strokes, drugs, loud music, waffle irons falling on my head, and general dementia, Cheap Eats'll be as entirely unreadable, in other words, as Finnegan's Wake. And all because my parents, an English professor and a high-school English teacher, were too dang lenient and wild and never scolded me for saying ain't. They must of been too busy scolding me for playing with my poo poo. Just kidding. I never did nothing like that as a kid, I'm proud to say. This is a much more recent development. It's Poo Poo Pride Month! This week's topic is floaters. Next week it's mouse turds, and then maybe I'll organize a big end-of-month rally in Dog Shit Park. And then I'll leave you all alone for a while. But first ... floaters. Floaters that float and float even though you flush and flush, and, yeah, we've had a lot of rain this year, but you don't want be the one to ruin everything and cause another drought. Tell you what I ate: sausage. A regular old sausage sandwich at that World Sausage place on Castro Street. I was working in the neighborhood with my friend, pharmacist, and bossladyperson Rapunzel, and then we were going to go out dancing with the Goths. But we worked so late that by the time we got all our black clothes and white make-up on, our eating options were pretty much limited to, well, a quick sausage at World Sausage, my go-to after-work sausage joint. They have 23 kinds of sausages, mostly made out of porks and chickens, but they also have beef hot dogs, a North African lamb sausage, and seafood and vegetarian ones. Price range: $4 to $5. You get a choice of two condiments (six different kinds of mustards, three ketchups, and four mayos) and two dressings (like, you know, grilled onions, hot peppers, mango chutney ...) but no sides. Those are extra. I got an Italian with pico de gallo and diced dills. No condiments, not even ketchup. On a French roll. No sides, no salad or nothing, and like I said it was a very late dinner, like 10 or 10:30. And then we went and danced to Echo and the Bunnymen, etc., and, as usual, I felt conservatively dressed among the Goths. At least this time I wasn't the only one smiling on the dance floor. Next time, I swear, I'm going to find something flowery and bursting with color to wear. I'll show those somber motherfuckers. I'll parade on their rain. This
time, afterwards, I crashed and cat-sat at my brother's in West Oakland,
and, in the morning: floaters. Still floating, after three flushes.
Maybe something was wrong with the toilet. Phenomenon and Deevee were
off camping, and I couldn't just leave these there for them to come
home to. And I didn't have all day. One of my brother's bluegrass albums
was playing in the background and it gave me an idea. So I picked up
a rock and started bonking them all upside the head, singing, "Go
down, go down, you Knoxville turds ..." WORLD SAUSAGE later closed its Market & Church Street San Francisco location. L.E.
Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books),
a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of
Lunch (Mammoth Books). July
20, 2005 |