Grapple a Falafel
I wandered into a pizzeria in need of falafel and in need of shelter.
“Do you want to eat inside?” asked the Italian looking Italian man. He looked exactly like you want a man serving you in an Italian authentic style pizzeria to look like: Short, curly, moustachey. If Luigi from Mario was an actual real, every day person but with much tamer hair and moustache, minus his very gay, green dungarees/jump suit he would probably look a litte bit like one of this guy’s removed cousins. You could tell he would spend many hours simply spinning dough around his hands like a spinning plate, laughing as he spun, laughing harder and more outlandishly as he watched the dough get bigger and bigger, thinner and thinner teetering between his near perfect, graceful control and flying off its axis at some absurd, floppy angle. Flour always fell endlessley from the sky when he span and the room slowed down, turning to sepia. The flour bounced off the dough covering his face, then got wafted away .......I trusted this guy and accepted his comforting gesture of restbite* from the bitter snow with a humble, warm, smile.
“It now costs 40k to buy food and eat in?” (nearly £4!) A swift sum of 40 minus 29 equalled this was a take out order. He didn’t know that I had no qualms about going over to the indoor shopping centre and procuring myself a table at a rival food establishment. He didn’t know that I would sit there unashamedly, smiling without even considering a minute, guilty purchase. He didn’t know that if I was challenged by a member of staff I would respond in a made up language, flummoxing and embarrassing them until they left me alone. No, he didn't know a lot of things. Actually, I Was starting to wonder whether perversely spinning dough was the only thing he did know. Maybe he was suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, being one of the lucky few able to grind a living out of this severe affliction. Sadly, due to the nefarious machinations of capitalism, there is no place in the working world for the man who has to constantly check and measure the angles of the ornaments on his mantlepiece and tie his shoelaces 16 times so that his family won't die in the most horrific manner.
Inside the shopping centre happily seated at the table I open the wrapping. I have told myself not to get excited, this isn’t Rusholme Falafel. I had already been pre-warned that for some utterly bizarre, unknown, disgusting, inexcusable and unforgiveable reason, no falafel place in Uppsala serves houmous or makes any attempt at some kind of refreshing yoghurt dip that is destined to be served with any meaningful falafel. Even if you bought a frozen falafel from a supermarket in England you would get a yoghurt dip. In Uppsala, they treat a falafel how a filthy English Take-away would treat one of their disgusting burgers or one of their inexplicable kebabs. The kebabs which they get from shaving what can only be described as “something” off of a huge slab of “unknown.” This unidentifiable object turns up at the takeaway each week a variety of colours raging from dark red to white, waiting to be devoured by some drunken island monkey dweller who knows every single night out is going to be topped off in the same way. Leaning on a counter, slaughtered, minger-in-tow, pale faced, greasy forehead, open gormless mouth which grunts "Donner."
Yes, they treat it how they treat their other culinary delights: brown, stringy, dry lettuce and a bit of onion. They have so little ingredients because they're desperate to get to their favourite part of the proceedings. The part where they ask you if you want sauce & when you say "Yeah, but only a tiny, tiny smidgeon please" they then nod in full acknowledgement, a slight second before drowning your food in a queer sea beyond the point of salvage. They live for that moment.
Actually, why *is* my falafel swimming in some horrible white sauce...looks kinda thick. No need to panic, don’t worry, surely it’s Italian Momma’s home made special sauce. Not gonna risk it. Not with that poison lying readily available in seemingly every kitchen in the world. I dip a finger..........
taste.......
so it’s you again....
Mayonnaise; we lock horns again, but as always it's you on the offensive in an unprovoked and senseless pre-emptive strike.
Mayonnaise: the ruiner of perfectly good sandwiches across the land.
Mayonnaise: the litmus test that divides the sane from the lame.
I march back towards the shop. Even though I smoked a spliff just before ordering I still have no worries about pointing out to Luigi that he is a mayonnaise harbouring bastard. The previously empty pizzeria was now filled with 4 new bodies. When I say empty, it wasn’t. There was a very sophisticated looking, older, italian gentleman with silver hair of the refined variety. He was sat in a very sharp suit being very suave, healthy and olive skinned. He genuinely appeared like you would expect an Italian Godfather to look. Expect if you expected one to look like someone out of Goodfellas or some other Hollywood supposedly “Gritty” gangster flick. The very fact that he could have starred in such a movie made it very clearly that wasn’t a part of any pizzeria toting crime family. This was just a gentile old man with a sense of style, to whom life had dealt a favourable hand.
This was a simple, straightforward shop situation. I calmly, politely and in a friendly manner explained the situation. I decided not to listen to what would be undoubtedly generic words of apology and promise of a fresh, clean, untainted falafel. I put on my “Don’t worry, everything’s fine, no problem here” face and entertained myself with my own thoughts. His fervent headshakes and universal “No deal” signals –Arms out in front, crossed in an ‘X’ and then uncrossed out to the sides back and forth repeatedly- enticed me back into the conversation. I was propelled from being a mere silent, disinterested extra in this Restaurant industry, scripted, farce of no refunds or returns policy, to being the writer, director and leading role. In England, the take away would have instantly granted my very reasonable request. Nobody wants to make a customer unhappy because:
1) They will never again bring their custom.
2) A customer who has a bad experience will badmouth said place to their friends and others. Possibly starting a stereotypical urban myth including the words "Health inspection," "spunk" and "animal."
It’s common business sense.
This is just a misunderstanding. I explain that I was never given the choice of mayonnaise. Existentialists may argue against this, wrongly.
There was no choice.
Still he protests..........
I start to pity the guy at this point. What he has failed to realise is that in his position the only trick up his sleeves is to say “No” and to hope that the person walks away, tail between legs. If the person refuses he can add nothing extra to his argument, having to merely keep responding “No” and hope that the customer eventually gives up the fight. With every second that passed my position became stronger, his weaker. Luigi had already used his special move, had already fired his one and only big gun. I was still throwing stones. I don’t up the ante at this point, still believeing reason and common sense will prevail.
“You didn’t ask me if I wanted mayonnaise though..”
‘It was obvious it was going to be there’
“There’s no sign saying that mayonnaise comes as standard..”
‘You don’t need no sign. Does the sign list everything you get in it? No’
“The falafel sign does actually list everythng and it doesn’t say mayonnaise.I just want to know how when you didn’t explain in person or on a sign why you assume that I should know this?”
This is beginning to get tedious. The only thing he is doing is wasting both our time, disturbing everyone elses peace and delaying pending food orders. The outcome of this is certain, it always has been since the moment I decided to come back. I open my hand palm up and rotate my hand in a sweep that includes the other worker standing behind him and the suave Italian gentleman. By doing so I draw them into the conversation, make them feel part of it whilst putting increasing public pressure on Luigi. I reiterate my comments at how ridiculous the pizzeria is being, throw in a trickle of disbelieving laughter and make a sort of raised eyebrow appeal at the other two. Nothing will damage him more than his own Sicilian flesh and blood siding with this cadaverous, English upstart.
“If nobody told me, how was I supposed to know?” is what I am now saying to the 2 other people. The guy has now retracted a little back into the kitchen and with a slightly hushed voice, absolutely overflowing with accusation he looks at me, points and spits
‘You know.... you must know.....everybody know.’
As i'm reeling from this unexpected dose of malice the suave gentleman interjects. His hands are in a prayer position and he nods them towards Luigi and tilts his head. It is a seemingly very stereotypical maffia gesture, that is pulled off with nobility and style. It is done with such authority that I assume he owns the pizzeria and has:
A) Decided to overrule Luigi and is granting me my rightful Falafel.
Or
B) Has ordered Luigi’s immediate execution for such insolence to a customer and for constructing an argument on such shaky and questionable foundations.
It’s all over now, I can taste the victory all I need to do now is look up & savour Luigi’s face sinking or his imminent demise. ..
but no! ...
still nothing.....
Not even a nod from the don himself can deter this man from his futile, predetermined path. This man *actually* believes that his next port of call isn’t going to be fixing me up some pure, free falafel. Here he is, tyring to convince me that I have forgotten about some universal law which states that mayonnaise automatically goes on food, when in fact, it was I who was going to teach him a very basic universal law. People, whether they be children, girlfriends, pets or customers, who cause a scene,tend to always get what they want. In the case of a customer who causes a scene, they always get what they want.
Everybody secretly knows this power exist. Many of us would carry some pathetic sense of pride, pretend it wasn’t worth the challenge, crumble then walk off and proceed bitch about for the remainder of the day. Unfortunately for him, that’s not me. My prize is my pride. This man has no idea to the lengths I’d be prepared to go to to get my clean falafel. Fortunately for him, I know that he will crack before I have to pull any extreme manouevres. It’s time to finish him, with ease and with speed.
I Start to erratically point in the general area of the menu board whilst pacing back and forth from the shop door to the counter, raising my voice slightly and putting on an angry tone - it doens’t matter what you say at this point, you can just repeat the general concern, if they don’t listen you start to shout- whilst all the other customer's eyes are glued to me. To his discredit, he cracked instantly and sooner than I had predicted. I thought I would have to at least start banging my chest, ape style, shouting, mixing it in with some direct pointing in his face before he came to his senses.
He motioned for me to sit down and await my bounty.
At this point I was disappointed. Yes, technically I had won, but it was an assured, incredibly minor victory. When calmly explaining at the beginning, I didn’t allow any emotion to penetrate me and I was genuinely calm. After he had been putting up resistance, even not submitting to the Don, I allowed myself to taste the sweet surge of adrenalin and prepared myself for the possibility of having to appear to completely flip out, have some insane fit complete with flying arms, hissing, screaming and scare them into thinking I was dangerous. He had toyed with me, pretending to be a worthy adversary , he built me up and then dropped me down. I knew that he had lost face and it was hard for him to back down.
I felt empty inside and strangely I didn’t want to gloat or adopt a cocky attitude. Even though this man had jeopardised my booked internet time at the library and even though he had allowed my arch nemesis to shoot off a sneak attack in my mouth, for some reason, I decided to make things easier for him. I opened the first post-war negotiations, explaining to him that in England they normally ask if you want sauce and I threw him some small talk and pleasantries. He responded in kind and I could see that part of the humiliation had been lifted.
The falafel was mediocre. My consumption undisturbed.
“Do you want to eat inside?” asked the Italian looking Italian man. He looked exactly like you want a man serving you in an Italian authentic style pizzeria to look like: Short, curly, moustachey. If Luigi from Mario was an actual real, every day person but with much tamer hair and moustache, minus his very gay, green dungarees/jump suit he would probably look a litte bit like one of this guy’s removed cousins. You could tell he would spend many hours simply spinning dough around his hands like a spinning plate, laughing as he spun, laughing harder and more outlandishly as he watched the dough get bigger and bigger, thinner and thinner teetering between his near perfect, graceful control and flying off its axis at some absurd, floppy angle. Flour always fell endlessley from the sky when he span and the room slowed down, turning to sepia. The flour bounced off the dough covering his face, then got wafted away .......I trusted this guy and accepted his comforting gesture of restbite* from the bitter snow with a humble, warm, smile.
“It now costs 40k to buy food and eat in?” (nearly £4!) A swift sum of 40 minus 29 equalled this was a take out order. He didn’t know that I had no qualms about going over to the indoor shopping centre and procuring myself a table at a rival food establishment. He didn’t know that I would sit there unashamedly, smiling without even considering a minute, guilty purchase. He didn’t know that if I was challenged by a member of staff I would respond in a made up language, flummoxing and embarrassing them until they left me alone. No, he didn't know a lot of things. Actually, I Was starting to wonder whether perversely spinning dough was the only thing he did know. Maybe he was suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, being one of the lucky few able to grind a living out of this severe affliction. Sadly, due to the nefarious machinations of capitalism, there is no place in the working world for the man who has to constantly check and measure the angles of the ornaments on his mantlepiece and tie his shoelaces 16 times so that his family won't die in the most horrific manner.
Inside the shopping centre happily seated at the table I open the wrapping. I have told myself not to get excited, this isn’t Rusholme Falafel. I had already been pre-warned that for some utterly bizarre, unknown, disgusting, inexcusable and unforgiveable reason, no falafel place in Uppsala serves houmous or makes any attempt at some kind of refreshing yoghurt dip that is destined to be served with any meaningful falafel. Even if you bought a frozen falafel from a supermarket in England you would get a yoghurt dip. In Uppsala, they treat a falafel how a filthy English Take-away would treat one of their disgusting burgers or one of their inexplicable kebabs. The kebabs which they get from shaving what can only be described as “something” off of a huge slab of “unknown.” This unidentifiable object turns up at the takeaway each week a variety of colours raging from dark red to white, waiting to be devoured by some drunken island monkey dweller who knows every single night out is going to be topped off in the same way. Leaning on a counter, slaughtered, minger-in-tow, pale faced, greasy forehead, open gormless mouth which grunts "Donner."
Yes, they treat it how they treat their other culinary delights: brown, stringy, dry lettuce and a bit of onion. They have so little ingredients because they're desperate to get to their favourite part of the proceedings. The part where they ask you if you want sauce & when you say "Yeah, but only a tiny, tiny smidgeon please" they then nod in full acknowledgement, a slight second before drowning your food in a queer sea beyond the point of salvage. They live for that moment.
Actually, why *is* my falafel swimming in some horrible white sauce...looks kinda thick. No need to panic, don’t worry, surely it’s Italian Momma’s home made special sauce. Not gonna risk it. Not with that poison lying readily available in seemingly every kitchen in the world. I dip a finger..........
taste.......
so it’s you again....
Mayonnaise; we lock horns again, but as always it's you on the offensive in an unprovoked and senseless pre-emptive strike.
Mayonnaise: the ruiner of perfectly good sandwiches across the land.
Mayonnaise: the litmus test that divides the sane from the lame.
I march back towards the shop. Even though I smoked a spliff just before ordering I still have no worries about pointing out to Luigi that he is a mayonnaise harbouring bastard. The previously empty pizzeria was now filled with 4 new bodies. When I say empty, it wasn’t. There was a very sophisticated looking, older, italian gentleman with silver hair of the refined variety. He was sat in a very sharp suit being very suave, healthy and olive skinned. He genuinely appeared like you would expect an Italian Godfather to look. Expect if you expected one to look like someone out of Goodfellas or some other Hollywood supposedly “Gritty” gangster flick. The very fact that he could have starred in such a movie made it very clearly that wasn’t a part of any pizzeria toting crime family. This was just a gentile old man with a sense of style, to whom life had dealt a favourable hand.
This was a simple, straightforward shop situation. I calmly, politely and in a friendly manner explained the situation. I decided not to listen to what would be undoubtedly generic words of apology and promise of a fresh, clean, untainted falafel. I put on my “Don’t worry, everything’s fine, no problem here” face and entertained myself with my own thoughts. His fervent headshakes and universal “No deal” signals –Arms out in front, crossed in an ‘X’ and then uncrossed out to the sides back and forth repeatedly- enticed me back into the conversation. I was propelled from being a mere silent, disinterested extra in this Restaurant industry, scripted, farce of no refunds or returns policy, to being the writer, director and leading role. In England, the take away would have instantly granted my very reasonable request. Nobody wants to make a customer unhappy because:
1) They will never again bring their custom.
2) A customer who has a bad experience will badmouth said place to their friends and others. Possibly starting a stereotypical urban myth including the words "Health inspection," "spunk" and "animal."
It’s common business sense.
This is just a misunderstanding. I explain that I was never given the choice of mayonnaise. Existentialists may argue against this, wrongly.
There was no choice.
Still he protests..........
I start to pity the guy at this point. What he has failed to realise is that in his position the only trick up his sleeves is to say “No” and to hope that the person walks away, tail between legs. If the person refuses he can add nothing extra to his argument, having to merely keep responding “No” and hope that the customer eventually gives up the fight. With every second that passed my position became stronger, his weaker. Luigi had already used his special move, had already fired his one and only big gun. I was still throwing stones. I don’t up the ante at this point, still believeing reason and common sense will prevail.
“You didn’t ask me if I wanted mayonnaise though..”
‘It was obvious it was going to be there’
“There’s no sign saying that mayonnaise comes as standard..”
‘You don’t need no sign. Does the sign list everything you get in it? No’
“The falafel sign does actually list everythng and it doesn’t say mayonnaise.I just want to know how when you didn’t explain in person or on a sign why you assume that I should know this?”
This is beginning to get tedious. The only thing he is doing is wasting both our time, disturbing everyone elses peace and delaying pending food orders. The outcome of this is certain, it always has been since the moment I decided to come back. I open my hand palm up and rotate my hand in a sweep that includes the other worker standing behind him and the suave Italian gentleman. By doing so I draw them into the conversation, make them feel part of it whilst putting increasing public pressure on Luigi. I reiterate my comments at how ridiculous the pizzeria is being, throw in a trickle of disbelieving laughter and make a sort of raised eyebrow appeal at the other two. Nothing will damage him more than his own Sicilian flesh and blood siding with this cadaverous, English upstart.
“If nobody told me, how was I supposed to know?” is what I am now saying to the 2 other people. The guy has now retracted a little back into the kitchen and with a slightly hushed voice, absolutely overflowing with accusation he looks at me, points and spits
‘You know.... you must know.....everybody know.’
As i'm reeling from this unexpected dose of malice the suave gentleman interjects. His hands are in a prayer position and he nods them towards Luigi and tilts his head. It is a seemingly very stereotypical maffia gesture, that is pulled off with nobility and style. It is done with such authority that I assume he owns the pizzeria and has:
A) Decided to overrule Luigi and is granting me my rightful Falafel.
Or
B) Has ordered Luigi’s immediate execution for such insolence to a customer and for constructing an argument on such shaky and questionable foundations.
It’s all over now, I can taste the victory all I need to do now is look up & savour Luigi’s face sinking or his imminent demise. ..
but no! ...
still nothing.....
Not even a nod from the don himself can deter this man from his futile, predetermined path. This man *actually* believes that his next port of call isn’t going to be fixing me up some pure, free falafel. Here he is, tyring to convince me that I have forgotten about some universal law which states that mayonnaise automatically goes on food, when in fact, it was I who was going to teach him a very basic universal law. People, whether they be children, girlfriends, pets or customers, who cause a scene,tend to always get what they want. In the case of a customer who causes a scene, they always get what they want.
Everybody secretly knows this power exist. Many of us would carry some pathetic sense of pride, pretend it wasn’t worth the challenge, crumble then walk off and proceed bitch about for the remainder of the day. Unfortunately for him, that’s not me. My prize is my pride. This man has no idea to the lengths I’d be prepared to go to to get my clean falafel. Fortunately for him, I know that he will crack before I have to pull any extreme manouevres. It’s time to finish him, with ease and with speed.
I Start to erratically point in the general area of the menu board whilst pacing back and forth from the shop door to the counter, raising my voice slightly and putting on an angry tone - it doens’t matter what you say at this point, you can just repeat the general concern, if they don’t listen you start to shout- whilst all the other customer's eyes are glued to me. To his discredit, he cracked instantly and sooner than I had predicted. I thought I would have to at least start banging my chest, ape style, shouting, mixing it in with some direct pointing in his face before he came to his senses.
He motioned for me to sit down and await my bounty.
At this point I was disappointed. Yes, technically I had won, but it was an assured, incredibly minor victory. When calmly explaining at the beginning, I didn’t allow any emotion to penetrate me and I was genuinely calm. After he had been putting up resistance, even not submitting to the Don, I allowed myself to taste the sweet surge of adrenalin and prepared myself for the possibility of having to appear to completely flip out, have some insane fit complete with flying arms, hissing, screaming and scare them into thinking I was dangerous. He had toyed with me, pretending to be a worthy adversary , he built me up and then dropped me down. I knew that he had lost face and it was hard for him to back down.
I felt empty inside and strangely I didn’t want to gloat or adopt a cocky attitude. Even though this man had jeopardised my booked internet time at the library and even though he had allowed my arch nemesis to shoot off a sneak attack in my mouth, for some reason, I decided to make things easier for him. I opened the first post-war negotiations, explaining to him that in England they normally ask if you want sauce and I threw him some small talk and pleasantries. He responded in kind and I could see that part of the humiliation had been lifted.
The falafel was mediocre. My consumption undisturbed.
posted by Swedophilia at 06:07
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