Tuesday, November 15, 2005

the amazing adventures of larry, the guy who can only take in one new piece of information at a time

Author's note: My favorite edible discovery in Cambridge so far has been a modified version of the Magnolia sandwich at Darwin's Ltd..

"I'll have a Magnolia please, with cheese but without tomatoes or sprouts."
[vacantly] "One Magnolia. Cheese?"
"Yes. No tomatoes or sprouts."
"No tomatoes."
"Or sprouts."
"No sprouts."

[proceeds to make sandwich, omitting cheese. wraps and tries to hand to customer.]
"Did you put cheese on this?"
"Yes."
[polite stare, but stare nonetheless]
"No." [takes sandwich back]

Incidentally, so far as I can tell, it's not that Larry's dumb. Or that he's surly, alienated, oppressed, malingering labor. Instead, the most plausible hypothesis seems just that he's stoned out of his mind. I wouldn't begrudge him this, if he could just remember the cheese. And keep his controlled substances away from my sandwich, of course.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could you post a recipe for a Magnolia sandwich, as I have never heard of it, nor could find any reference to it.

jeremy said...

It's named after something in Cambridge, I think. It's got hummus, apples, avocado, carrots, tomatoes, and sprouts by default.

Anonymous said...

It's funny because I think you blogged about stoners making your midnight sub sandwich back in Madison too.

Could it be the way you make your requests? Sometimes workers play dumb if they think that's how you see them.

Maybe not, but ask others if they have so much trouble getting what they request on a sandwich. Maybe you just see stoned workers everywhere.

ps. I totally cracked up at that post about your not knowing how to set your radiator heat with a thermostat.

Tom Volscho said...

if you go to brookline there's a really great thai noodle place...the first time i ever had this dish (Pad Thai).. i was like whoa! it's on harvard street and it won the "best of boston" awards a few years in a row