I knew years ago, as a 12-year-old writing in my diary, that I “wasn’t normal”.
I tried real hard to be “like everyone else”.
Inevitably, though, I was the kid whose parents always wanted their “psycho kids” to play with, and other kids incontrovertibly found just plain “weird” and avoided like the plague.
I haven’t a clue as to why.
I thought I looked just as sytlin’ as everyone else did in their lime- green fishnet stockings and white, pleather, go-go boots.
But go figure.
So, it shouldn’t surprise me (at this age) that weird stuff happens to me on a daily basis.
This past weekend, the Princess and I met one of our good friends for breakfast at one of her local breakfast joints on the Peninsula.
Unlike other times when I order, I decided to make it easy on the clerk taking my request and choose something directly from the menu.
I didn’t want anything “on the side”, “without anything added” or (God forbid!) “on a separate dish”.
I just wanted their California Egg SCRAMBLE.
Simple enough, right?
Uh-Hun.
After waiting forever and a day in line at this joint, I get up to the clerk, politely greet her, and place, what I think is a very simple order.
“I’ll take your California Egg SCRAMBLE, with a glass of water, please,” I politely tell the clerk while reading directly from the menu that I have in my hand.
“How do you want your eggs?” she responds.
“Over easy? Sunny side up? Basted? Or Poached?”
I know I’m a little hard of hearing in the one ear and I have (on occasion) mistakenly read the wrong item on a menu, but I know I told the young woman that I wanted a “California SCRAMBLE”.
So I give her one of my infamous, Ms. Benedetti raised left eyebrow looks, that basically says, “WTS are you talking about?”
She’s a quick read and correctly interprets my facial expression and emphatically (and ever so slowly) responds with, “Ma’am, people like their eggs prepared differently. Some people like them scrambled. Some people like them over easy. And some people like them poached”.
“So (long pause), how do you want yours?” she scornfully continues.
Not wanting to create a scene and conscious of everyone impatiently waiting behind me, I politely respond, “Thank you for graciously pointing that out to me. I’m sorry. Could you please give me a California SCRAMBLE, scrambled, please?”
The Princess, who is waiting in line behind me, and badly in need of her morning caffeine fix impatiently mumbles under her breath, “Lucie, for Chriminy sakes, I thought you were gonna order something simple this morning? What’s the problem? People need their morning coffee before lunchtime, ya know?! Just order some pancakes and eggs and if they put your eggs on top of the pancakes, I’ll give you MY plate for your eggs, so you can have your eggs SEPARATE from your pancakes! Just order, already!!!!”
Madonna!
I thought the whole lot of them was wacked on Saturday morning (including my testy partner), but apparently, I was being my usual inconsiderate personage.
Shoot me for being such a demanding customer. I actually thought a California SCRAMBLE, came SCRAMBLED!
But what do I know? I wore lime-green fishnet stockings, as a 12- year-old, and have never been what others call, “normal”, don’t ‘cha know?
God forbid I actually ordered pancakes and eggs and asked for a separate dish for my eggs! I have in past breakfast outings, and, as the Princess and my friends will attest to, they haven’t been some of our more pleasurable breakfasts, to say the least.
What can I say? I’m a purist. I don’t like my egg yolk on my pancakes.
Like my pancakes with just butter and syrup, don’t cha know, and strongly dislike egg yolk co-mingling with my blue-germs and blueberry compote.
Go out and have a good one today, People!
And remember, we’re all a little “weird” sometimes. Some of us just more so than others.
Catch ya next time looking at life from my shoes!
Life in Lucie's Shoes 