There’s a bell in the bathroom at my mom’s house. Like one of those “ring for service,” bells that dings when you slap it. Because there’s more than a touch of absurdist bathroom humor that strains through my family. So today, I figured I’d challenge myself to write something thematic, amusing, and true, without being overly gross.
Here’s hoping for laughter. Amusement comes from the heart of the beholder, or another such place.
Brown in Town
My dog Wing used to hate the UPS guy, which was so unfair. Both dog and man were very nice; a golden retriever and a normal dude who placed our packages on our porch top-side-up. Because we lived on the main strip, these two came into proximity often, and Wing would react sometimes just to UPS driving by.
He’d bark and let us know he found the entire operation of dropping packages by brown truck man distasteful. My mom would giggle and say with a funny face, “Wing doesn’t like Browwnnn!” Wing was also a dog that did not hesitate to defecate in open spaces where newly minted coastal aristocrats1 were hanging about.
Shameless and picky. We loved Wing.
This main drag changed names during our family’s time there, pushing the moniker “North” to an “N” and adding in the word “Main” into a central position, so what was once North Road became N Main Road. The number of our house changed at one point too: 57 to 73. For you math nerds, that’s + 16.
It’s a wonder Brown found us at all.
art break
Regular regulars & color coding
In restaurants & clubs where I worked in RI and NY, regulars who became known to the staff tended to adhere to “my usual” protocols. That is, our most frequent customers would tend to order the same suite of things – or types of things– to eat and drink. Their usuals, I guess you could say. And we got to know what these items were as we got to know the folks proper.
We also could spot categories of usuals via regulars, because there were some trends.
For instance, Dale, a pipe-smoking, intellectual, solid-tipping, and social-activist regular, drank only brown liquids: dark beer, coffee, diet coke, maybe an iced tea on a special day (when he felt light and lemony, I guess).
He was not the only one of our favorites at the VC2 who favored darker liquids to consume, many of the favorite regulars tended to prefer darker liquids and eat red meat. Hilario loved his Hennessy, and made us all laugh. Red wine was a big favorite too, but the wines were also in play by presumptuous bottle-loving, opening theatrics aficionados, so I can’t really make a clear characterization with Merlot.
CTA (Cut To Aside): I personally favored red wine back in the day. Now I drink Decaf Mocha Lattes. That’s red >> brown (that’s a “greater than” character by the way, totally inappropriate here, but I call it a back bracket or carrot when I’m coding HTML, yet that’s probably inaccurate too). I’m all about Mochas these days, because they remind me of my husband’s and my first date, and chocolate is always awesome, but I digress. If you are so inclined, you can buy me one here. My favorite costs $6.43 + $1 tip at Starbucks. This habit is not cheap. Nor is my desire to travel more. Help a sister out.
Boss Red & Malcolm Gladwell’s Ketchup
My boss at one RI restaurant was an incredible woman3. Phyllis was a red wine, red meat lady. “Rare Dear,” she’d order at the bar. Even her turkey burgers, until we set her straight on that not being a good idea. No presumption there, she was a kindly, self-aware and uniquely supportive human being.
And she LOVED Heintz Ketchup on far to many inappropriate items, but I can’t blame her, ketchup is kind of “the perfect food,” implies Malcolm Gladwell here, an in a meta way dance about the publication, so does Tim Carmody here.
One day I’ll tell you the tale how she wouldn’t let me fire myself from my job: even after I said an asshole thing and was ashamed. She had very little ego, loads of self awareness, and courageous kindness too. She built one heck of a family.
To return last minute to the color scheme of the day, the finest tippers and biggest players would often eat red meat, if they ate at all. In the days of smoking, most of them smoked. Dark, drinks, ash, meat, smoke = big tips. Heavily specific vegetarians, or health nuts were typically not so generous, and we did not cater to them well. Honestly, most were annoying, which has hopefully changed over the years. I don’t know, I haven’t waited tables for 15 years now. Someone clue me in.
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Colors for good health
The other day, I was trying to describe our family’s eating habits to a friend, so as to give the impression of what happens when I’m not cooking for them. She laughed with instant recognition when I said, “you know, they eat only tan, white and brown foods if I’m not handling the meal planning. Very little color.”
Do you know anyone like this? Leaning beige to the beigeist browns in their consumption? Yeah, not as healthy as eating the rainbow as they say. But all good. Who am I to judge, I freaking love dark chocolate.
Here’s a song I’ve always disliked, but fits today’s color scheme: bricks are maroon. The song to me has always felt pretty bleak, but I feel like life is a much more interesting a fabric of funky colors than this. Sorry if you don’t like it either. My bad.
FOOTNOTES & SUB-SUBTEXT 😉
- This term’s origins are interesting, maybe one day I’ll tell you. For those of you who don’t know, Jamestown is an island roughly the same size as Manhattan. At one point, folks of all walks of life and socioeconomic classes lived there. The stores and housing were varied and there was lots of local color and harmony among people. At some point in 1990s, the island was “discovered,” and those who newly bought in seemed to want to shut the bridges down from non wealthy others (like Mung fishermen, middle-class families, and blue collar workers – unless they were pleasant at servicing the wealthy).
Because the island has finite water and building lots, the pricing to buy there now is stratospheric. I could not live there again with my family without something huge like PowerBall win, or sponsorship, or an incredible writing career. Lol. All good though. I love where I live now.
↩︎ - Village Corner, also called “New York’s Corner of Walk and Don’t Walk.” More stories here. ↩︎
- A tribute to the amazing, still fully living and loving Queen of a woman is here. ↩︎
