John’s Restaurant, NYC, October 20, 2008
I walk to far end of the restaurant and take a seat facing the front door, across from an elderly couple sitting in the booth next to my table. He leans across the aisle and says to me, confidentially, “Get the pasta special—it’s a good value. It’s probably the best deal in the city. We come here about every two weeks, my wife and I. I don’t know if you like pasta?” “Well, we’ll see,” I smile at him and turn to the menu.
Looking it over, it is a good value, and it was what I probably would have ordered anyway, so I order the pasta special. It comes with—at no extra charge—coffee, salad, and a dessert. When the waiter leaves, I lean over and say to the couple. “Thanks for the tip. I ordered the special.” “Ah, wonderful. What did you get, if you don’t mind my asking?” “I got the shrimp fettucini.” “Oh, I’ve never heard of that. That sounds good. I get the spaghetti. My wife gets the salad and we share dessert. She gets a Coke, I drink the coffee, and we both eat for under twenty bucks. It’s the deal of the century.”
The coffee arrives already cold. The wife is unhappy that I’m not eating. “You can take that salad home—it’s a whole meal in itself!” When the main course arrives, the elderly man leans across the aisle and asks, “So what kind of pasta did you get, if you don’t mind my asking?”
They’ve just come from a film that they didn’t realize they’d already seen until after it started. She doesn’t remember seeing it at all but he says he remembered some of the scenes, just not the details, he often knew what would happen next. His wife is trying to catch the waitress’s attention. She’s ready for the check. She wants her Coke wrapped to go. When the waitress returns with the check and a Coke in a paper bag, her husband hands her some money. Then he and his wife stand up and begin organizing their packages. “I could carry that,” he says, but then has trouble zipping up his jacket. “Maybe I can’t carry that. Can you carry part of it?” Then she remembers they haven’t gotten their change, so they take off their jackets and sit down again.
The waitress leaves before he can count out the change. His wife yells after her not to forget about her Coke to go. “That’s what I just handed you!” “Oh,” she says, looking at the bag in her lap. He asks his wife, “What did I give her, a five?”
They stand up. “I could carry that,” he says, but has trouble zipping up his jacket. “Maybe I can’t carry that. Can you carry part of it?” He sees me watching him. “What did you order, young man, if you don’t mind my asking? The special? Yeah, that’s what I had too. What kind of pasta? Shrimp fettucini? That sounds interesting. We always get spaghetti. She gets the salad, and fills up on bread. We come here about every two weeks. We eat like kings for less than twenty bucks. It’s the best deal in the city. So what did you order, if you don’t mind my asking?”
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