Breakfast in America
Hungry?
Yes, this is the sight that usually greets me on any given evening. Isn’t it nice to be so beloved by the fine restaurants of my neighborhood? Fans of New York who don’t live here often say envious things about all our take-out places. The wide variety of cheap and easy food (forget cheap and easy people). The food from countries that you’ve never even heard of. But then, they don’t have to contend with the nightly detritus that shows up, unwanted and unasked for, like the cold you got from touching the wrong subway pole. Or any subway pole.
I keep my recycling pile right near the door so I can just drop the menus right in but sometimes I forget and slip on them. Luckily, although I have good insurance, I’ve never sued myself.
The funny thing about these menus is they give you a clue as to what the people on your floor are having for dinner. “Oh, someone’s having Obento Delight. Good choice.” Sometimes, the menus show up while I’m actually at home and they make a kind of swooshy sound sliding under the door. They startle me and I immediately wonder if I have a rodent problem. I used to want to chase after the delivery guy, shaking my fist and telling him where he could stuff his menus. (It’s always a “him;” there are no delivery women, for whatever reason). But then I realized that if you came all the way to America and the life from which you were escaping was actually worse than riding around on a little bicycle, dodging NY traffic in all weathers at all hours, risking your life with every doorbell buzz, all for meager tips, well then that life had to suck really, really bad. Do you need me running after you yelling, waving my comfortable life and fat, fat wallet?
Speaking of other countries (how’d you like that smooth segue?) I tried. I really really tried to figure out soccer and this whole World Cup thing. I watched a bit. All I saw was people running frantically around a field. One guy kicks to the second guy. The second guy kicks to the third guy. The third guy kicks back to the first guy. Oh, it was a real blast. I later found out that it was a “breathtaking match” in which one team “trounced” the other, 1-0. Or as my friend Neil Finn would say, “one-nil.” Shut up, Neil Finn is my friend.
Now, I am so not a xenophobe. You will remember my love of all that is English. Plus, I love sports and my favorite athlete is Argentinean. Am I not the perfect candidate to get into this? But sorry, it’s a non-starter. As a matter of fact, I never felt so American as when I sat, slack-jawed, watching men in knee socks dashing madly around a large field accomplishing not much of anything. God bless America and our complete non-interest in this thing that obsesses every single other corner of the globe!
Supertramp – Breakfast In America
It seems sacrilegious to include Neil Finn in on this anti-soccer post, but hey, I’ll use any excuse. Neil Finn is, to me, the best songwriter who ever lived. Sorry, John Lennon. Sorry, Gershwin. Sorry, the rest of you. Sure, you’ve heard:
Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over
But he’s way better than that song. Did you wonder where all the cool songs for grown-ups were? Look no further. It was hard to narrow down, but here are two favorites:
Neil Finn – She Will Have Her Way (Sorry, his solo stuff only gets 30 seconds)
