The Battle Eternal

Maybe you’ve been there before too: you stand in a fluorescent-lit money trap, your sneakers squeaking on the polished floor, pressed between rows of colorful trinkets you absolutely do not need. In each hand is an object, completely unnecessary to your continued survival, the shrink-wrap collecting oily sweat from your fingers. They are but things, nine times out of ten made of simple plastic and offering little in the way of insight into the human condition.

But you must have them. And there’s only room in your wallet right now for one.

The agony is unrelenting, dear reader. Whenever I am going to purchase anything on any variety of “budget,” I invariably end up with two choices of the exact same price which divorce my soul into two separate, equally coveting halves. These battles can go on for hours. I need not tell you the grisly details of the “Resident Evil 4 versus Metroid Prime: Corruption” struggle that raged for hours within a Gamestop one summer afternoon. Let’s just say it got so bad that a call had to be placed to William Cover to end the civil war once and for all.

In case you think I’m crazy, let me inform you that my wife is standing directly behind me at this very moment, wielding a large knife in one hand and an onion in the other, having no less than a conversation with the latter. She is reasoning with it, insisting that it “wasn’t in the refrigerator for that long,” and calling upon the onion’s sense of duty: “I was planning on using you tonight! You were an important part of this meal!”

I’m just saying, there are crazier things than being stuck on a purchase–things like anthropomorphizing a vegetable.

Anyway, my predicament was thus: a double-feature DVD of the first two “Resident Evil” movies (before you say a word, know this: I have written songs based on Ingmar Bergman films, I have a favorite Akira Kurosawa film, and I’m allowed a guilty pleasure!), or, for the same price, “Minority Report” and “Mad Max” (the latter of which I’d never seen). You see, Corelyn and I discovered yet another Target gift card from our wedding that we hadn’t used, and my cut of its total allowed for one of these two options. After rigorous debate, I decided it was impossible to choose, and that I would just need to have the “Resident Evil” pack AND “Mad Max,” going over my limit by an incredibly reasonable four dollars. Turns out, Corelyn was splurging on her half as well, so she was in no position to critique me. All’s well that ends flat broke.

What, you ask, was she going over her limit on? Vegetables. Frozen green beans and broccoli. No, I’m not kidding with you. I have never known a human being so transfixed by a class of food designed specifically by Jesus Christ Himself to make other edible things more delicious by comparison. My theory for this phenomenon is simple: for a large part of her adolescence, Corelyn was a vegetarian. A romantic relationship with me soon made this course of life impossible, because you can only watch so many tender, juicy hamburgers be consumed from across the table before the omnivore in your genetic wiring kicks in, but even after I rescued her from this disastrous way of existence, a mark remained on her. She has, I believe, some kind of culinary Stockholm Syndrome.

The going is still hard over here in Charlottesville, but we are managing nonetheless, and I must say Cor and I have a lot of fun spending time with each other in spite of everything. I feel so blessed to have her as my companion, particularly at times like this. She’s steady, tough and sympathetic, always there no matter what. I myself am trying to maintain the role of Male Egotist (short for “ME”), blazing into every situation confident of how much cooler we are than everyone. When you’re single, confidence only goes so far, because it’s just you and everyone doubts themselves. When you’re married, though, you’re a team, and you always think your partner is awesome, so by association you must be as well. It sends the old vanity through the roof.

Let me give you an example: the wife and I were out for a nice Mexican dinner (our first meal out in some time), for which we had budgeted a small but reasonable sum of money. We were enjoying our dinner in spite of the obnoxiously loud open mic going on behind us, but things began to fall apart when a fly was discovered in my food.

Not good.

Naturally, I contacted the waiter and asked for a replacement in a to-go box. He agreed, and sportingly provided me with just that, but when the bill arrived I discovered I had been charged for the same meal twice. Sneaky devil. I summoned our waiter back over and told him I had expected the replacement free. Corelyn later pointed out that long before he arrived at our table, he looked like he knew what this was going to be about.

“Well, we can’t just do that. We can’t just give you a free meal because a fly fell into your food,” he asserted very calmly.

Oh yes, hot-shot. Yes you can. “But the meal was ruined,” I retorted.

“Yeah but that’s not our fault.”

“It’s your establishment,” I stated.

“I know it’s our establishment,” he replied. Not really any kind of argument, but okay.

“I want this meal replaced,” I put flatly.

“I can talk to the manager, but he’s not going to allow it. He’s going to be really mad.”

Oh, I’m terrified. “Send him to me,” I said.

“I can do that if you want.”

“You talk to him first,” I said, “And then if he won’t do it, send him to me.”

Folks, I was a waiter once. It was the worst, most hellish job I’ve ever performed, but I did it. I know how restaurants work, and there isn’t a blue-jean wearing Ryan Gosling look-alike waiter in this world who’s going to tell me it’s a heretical notion that a meal has to be re-prepared. It happens all the time, and a diseased insect is one of the better reasons I’ve ever heard to do it.

And let’s be clear about something else: flies do happen, and no matter how clean a restaurant is they will probably appear once in awhile to ruin someone’s meal. That does not, however, remove you from responsibility. I’m sure your restaurant is perfectly sanitary, and I won’t tell anyone any different, but Mother Nature is still going to put one on her tab once in awhile; it just happens. Don’t bat your eyes at me and say there was no way you could have seen it coming. I specifically ordered the “Fajitas without larvae” and that’s sure as hell what I’m going to get. After all, if this happening has to be someone’s fault, it sure as Shinola isn’t mine; I didn’t offer my rice to an ant hill, and I’m not aware of any magical procedures I’m supposed to use when consuming food so that insects don’t want it anymore. And you don’t get to take my money in return for unclean food every now and again, shrugging and writing it off to chance.

I watched our waiter walk over to his manager. They talked for maybe three seconds, and then I got exactly what I asked for. That’s what I thought.