Vegan nutjobs

Working at a middle-scale vegan restaurant, you run into a lot of kooks. Myself for instance. YESSS! Got me!

But seriously now, there's something about health-food places that attract the unhealthiest, most irrational, socially inept people. Myself for instance! OUCH!

Last night at Angelica, though, I met someone who really took the cake in that department. Myself. STING!

Okay, okay, me... I get the point. Being self-critical is funny, until someone gets hurt. Which I just did. So stop.

My job at Angelica is "Phone," but I'm usually pissed whenever anyone calls. If you don't know the answer, it's not my job to tell ya, buddy. Well, it is, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it. Last night started off slow, though, so when the phone rang, I was in an unusually good mood.

"Angelica Kitchen, may I help you?"

"Yes, hi, I'd like to make an order."

These calls are the worst. If I had the guts, I'd give them the hang up they deserve every time. This time, though, I got a good feeling from the customer and really didn't mind taking an order.

"No problem," I said as I grabbed the pen and pad. "Can I get your name please?"

"Sure. My name is Julie [MIDDLE INITIAL CENSORED FOR PRIVACY] Anderson."

"And your phone number?"

"(21[THIRD DIGIT IN AREA CODE CENSORED FOR PRIVACY]) 477-8320."

"And what would you like tonight?"

"I'll have... wait. Do you do delivery?"

SCORE!

We don't do delivery, and most people who ask would rather become fatally emaciated than leave their apartment to walk the half a block for our food. Well, most of them will be fatally emaciated either way.

"No, we don't do delivery. Just take-out. Sorry."

"That's... Hmm. Well. I might still... see, I'm sick."

A vegan restaurant customer sick? Previously inconceivable. Having just got over a sleep-deprivation-induced mini-cold myself, though, I felt for her. Which I wouldn't have otherwise.

"That's too bad. Sorry to hear that."

"So, I don't know if I... well... I need this food to heal. Alright, I'll come pick up the order."

"I really wish we could bring it to you."

"That's okay. I'd like to order..."

And here's where she revealed herself as a customer with a really old Angelica Kitchen Menu. Every once in a while, I get people ordering stuff I've never seen here, stuff like sweet potato miso tahini stew, tofu ferret, pizza, chicken-fried "unsteak", "Mamma's Elixer," and sometimes something called "The Gruel of Chard Knocks." It's painful enough to order that one when it's actually on the menu...

These poor saps always think we're located in Harlem and that we still deliver. And when I ask them who our president is, they say, "Ronald Regan. The year is 1986. Who else would our president be? I mean, of course I wish it were Mondale. Other milestones at this time: Michael Jackson is America's most beloved pop singer, the Cold War still rages on with no end in sight, and I just signed up for a new computer phone thingie called Prodigy through my computer science grad school." Yep, they're behind the times, alright. That tofu ferret really betrays them.

This woman wasn't that bad. She just thought we sold a kukicha/hibiscus tea combination. That must have been weird when we had it. Now we sell kukicha and hibiscus teas separately, the way nature intended.

"What's in the hibiscus tea," she asked. "You're sure there's not kukicha?"

"Yes, I'm sure. The hibiscus lime cooler has hibiscus, obviously, some lime juice - obviously. And agave nectar, which is probably nature's best sweetner." ("Next to Rachel's beautiful smile," I would have added, had Rachel been listening)

"Oh, no, I shouldn't be having any sweetners when I'm sick. I'll have the kukicha tea."

"Okay. And what else would you like?"

"A seaweed salad."

That old menu wouldn't stop tormenting me.

"We have seaweed, and we have salads," I corrected. "But just like kukicha and hibiscus, they don't mix here anymore."

"But isn't it like a snow shoot, seaweed salad..."

"Oh, the kimpira. That has snowpea shoots, burdock, carrots, and seaweed."

"It must be that."

"Okay. One kimpira. Anything else?"

"A side of brown rice."

"Okay," I said. Then I wrote down "brown rice."

"And a vegetable boullion."

Now, I was pretty impressed with her food selections. The boullion is a seaweed broth with tons of minerals. When I had my mini-cold, I was drinking it all night at work. The kimpira salad has burdock and seaweed, perhaps the most "yang" foods this world has to give. Kukicha is alkalizing and has very little caffeine; she was smart to avoid the lime hibiscus cooler's sugar. And brown rice is a whole grain with b-complex. Here was someone who knew what to eat when she was sick. I wanted to commend her.

Which I'm not supposed to do. The owner of Angelica says it's not our place to give nutrition advice. We're not a hospital, we're a trough. Point taken, but somtimes I find the urge too strong to resist, like when a customer was blaming tomatoes - instead of the real culprit tofu - for men losing their sex drive. I was having a field day with plant estrogens and men growing breasts until a glance from the floor manager put me in my place. "But that's not... my place," I apologized.

I usually control the impulse pretty well, but I had to compliment this woman for her food picks. She could have gone wildly astray, getting a soba sensation, salgados, an ole man seitan, and coconut macaroon cookies. But no. She stuck to the absolute healthiest things we had to offer... at least on our current, more populist menu. I'm sure she could have done better if her ancient Angelica menu magically came to life, with all its macrobiotic purity.

"Those are some really good foods if you want to get rid of a cold," I said. "I hope they help."

"Oh, I don't have a cold," she said, somewhat taken aback by my assumption. "I have Lyme Disease."

Whoa! Lime Disease! I hadn't heard anyone mention that disease in almost 20 years. No wonder she had that old menu! Isn't Lime Disease what you get when you're in third grade, and you get bit by a tick at summer camp? As a kid, I always thought Lime disease would be so cool to get. Because, you know, it tastes likes limes.

Lime Diease! It makes me think of limestone too. It just sounds so awesome and pleasant to have. Why don't people get it anymore? Or at least make jokes about it. That's some unmined territory, right there. I'm sure there's a hilarious T-shirt idea in Lime Disease somewhere. I could see hipsters really getting into Lime Disease, for the ironic nostalgic value.

"Lime disease!" I exclaimed. "That's, um, horrible. No wonder you didn't want the lime hibiscus cooler. You obviously don't need any more lime. Did you get that from a tick?"

"Uh," she paused, a little surprised by my enthusiasm. "Yes, I think I got it from a tick. Well, no one knows where I got it from. I don't know. It's a strange disease. You feel so strong and healthy one day, then suddenly you're so weak, you can hardly move."

"Wow, I'm really jealous. Lime Disease! That's a blast from the past. Okay, okay, I'll stop gushing. Would you like anything else?"

"Sure," she said. "I'll have some of your mashed potatoes with gravy."

Hold up, hold up. Did she say what I thought she said? Mashed... potatoes? Mashed WHITE potatoes? Mashed DEADLY NIGHTSHADE potatoes? Did I mention DEADLY - meaning "OF DEATH"... potatoes!? This is what you want to cure you? You'll set your health back 100 years to caveman times! I must be daydreaming! Cause if I'm not.... WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?!?!?

This time I kept my mouth shut. She must have noted my shocked silence, though, because she confirmed that mashed potatoes with gravy is what she wanted alright. Now I know where she got the Lime Disease. Tick-infested white potatoes!

Sad, sad, sad.

It's a day later. I imagine she's succomed to the deadly nightshade poisons flowing through her veins by now. If she survived, though, and is reading this blog, I have some other Lime Disease miracle cure ideas that might be almost as effective as mashed white potatoes and gravy:

A stick in the eye.

A liver transplant, hold the new liver.

A TNT detonation on the heart.

Falling off a cliff while over-dosing on heroin with a knife in your heart and shooting yourself with a bazooka and eating white potatoes.

You see what I have to deal with here?! Customers. God! I'm never answering the phone again.

Comments

[carmichael]

oh my god. i'm sorry.
you know, a customer made me cry once over the phone. she yelled at me and called me stupid. the truth was that we had different sets of information to work with. she thought we delivered, had tofu ferret or whatever, and would wipe her butt, too. and i couldn't really hear what she was saying on her shitty cellphone.
and last week, someone screamed "fuck you" at me and hung up because while i assumed she was making a pick-up order, she assumed we were going to deliver it to her and she was REALLY HUNGRY (at 10:15), but not hungry enough to pick it up. but i didn't cry that time, because i just don't think of the customers as human anymore.
i probably shouldn't be reading your blog. but angelica doesn't pay me to not read your blog, do they?