I Didn't Fall Off No Turnip Truck

I'm in a Burger King on 86th St. in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. An old, elevated rail line (the West End line, now part of the D/6th Ave. subway line) rumbles north and south route out front.

It's a nice-looking, modern BK with a combined post-war American culture/Hollywood motif. In my experience, bums like this particular location, as do cops and the economically/socially constrained. (There was a gravelly-voiced guy – would probably sound like a mobster to non-New Yorkers – perhaps intellectually challenged, almost talking to himself before. Technically, it probably fell under the heading of "thinking" aloud. Constantly.)

The smell here is not of charbroiling, but of some kind of cleaning compound. It smells like whatever is typically used to mask the smell of sickness and loss of control in the apartment of an elderly, incontinent woman.

In this warm, inviting environment, I breakfasted on a sausage biscuit and Fanta orange soda as the morning snow melted outside.

It's a happy morning.

But last night was another story entirely.

I went into a little store in NoHo and picked up what was basically a 50 cent bag of Quinlan pretzels. But in Manhattan, with high rents, etc., the snack companies offer stores their items without a price marked on them, so the stores can charge what they need to without being contradicted by the bag. Usually, this means 75 cents for a "50 cent bag" but these guys had the nerve to ask a dollar fifty for a 50 cent bag of pretzels!

Now, Quinlan is not a premium brand but I may have swallowed hard and paid if they'd asked for a dollar. But a dollar fifty. I'd never seen anything like it..

I demurred.

And the counter guy mocked me, saying something like, ''A dollar fifty – that's a lot of money."

I said it might not be a lot of money but it's a lot of money for that.

Which is when I made my mistake.

I said his price was out of line even with typical Manhattan overpricedness but all he took from that was a license to see me as an outerborough rube and he began indicating directions -- "Queens." (Points in one direction.) "Brooklyn." (Points in the other direction.) Meaning "Sure. In the out of the way hamlets you're used to this may be high but my sophisticated, high class, clientele expects to pay a premium that befits their lifestyle, you penny ante, peasant."

I pointed as well, indicating the price for non-premium pretzels would be 75 cents, tops, one block in either direction. Then, pointing directly at the guy, I said (this is an almost exact quote), "You are a crook or an idiot."

I don't think he got the "or an idiot" part, which is too bad, because what I meant was that he might have been making a mistake. Rather than overcharging with intent, he may have been citing the wrong price .

But he gave no indication this was the case.

So. I walked one block to Bully's Deli and bought a premium brand of pretzels, "Snyder's of Hanover", for 50 cents. (They also had an enormous bag of Rold Gold for under a dollar!)

A dollar fifty, indeed.

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19 January, 2007 @ 21:53 GMT
http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer