Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Tougher Than The Rest
I have a running joke with the lady at the gate with the dreamy soft baps.
If I'm feeling peckish - that'll be always then - after I've picked a sandwich, I'll take a peep in the drawer where she keeps her fruit pies and say with a straight face, "As it's Friday, I'll have one of these too, please."
The funny bit, of course, is that I say this regardless of what day it is. It's the comedy of delusion.
The first few times she looked blankly at me, like I was a complete stupidhead, but you've got to have faith in your catchphrases, stick with them through the lean times and believe that one day they'll come through for you.
Several months on, she now finds "As it's Friday..." just as amusing as I do, although she has the common decency not to make a big deal of it by laughing or smiling much.
The road is dark, it's a thin, thin line, and I'm shy and not so gifted at small talk as some of her more gregarious customers. Spike Milligan said that the cliche is the handrail of the crippled mind, but mine is a joke about hunger and believing a situation to be better than it actually is.
I wonder, were we to meet outside of a sandwich transaction, say in the pub or the supermarket or just passing in the street, whether I'd need to quickly think of something new to say, or if "As it's Friday, I'll have one of these too, please" would suffice, and whether it would be more or less funny outside its original context.
I also wonder - though I can probably guess - if she ever dwells on our little exchanges as I'm doing now, hours after the event, the crumbs of the day swept under the desk, all but a distant memory.
If I'm feeling peckish - that'll be always then - after I've picked a sandwich, I'll take a peep in the drawer where she keeps her fruit pies and say with a straight face, "As it's Friday, I'll have one of these too, please."
The funny bit, of course, is that I say this regardless of what day it is. It's the comedy of delusion.
The first few times she looked blankly at me, like I was a complete stupidhead, but you've got to have faith in your catchphrases, stick with them through the lean times and believe that one day they'll come through for you.
Several months on, she now finds "As it's Friday..." just as amusing as I do, although she has the common decency not to make a big deal of it by laughing or smiling much.
The road is dark, it's a thin, thin line, and I'm shy and not so gifted at small talk as some of her more gregarious customers. Spike Milligan said that the cliche is the handrail of the crippled mind, but mine is a joke about hunger and believing a situation to be better than it actually is.
I wonder, were we to meet outside of a sandwich transaction, say in the pub or the supermarket or just passing in the street, whether I'd need to quickly think of something new to say, or if "As it's Friday, I'll have one of these too, please" would suffice, and whether it would be more or less funny outside its original context.
I also wonder - though I can probably guess - if she ever dwells on our little exchanges as I'm doing now, hours after the event, the crumbs of the day swept under the desk, all but a distant memory.
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