- by Fish

I'm waiting in line for lunch at the deli near my office in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The deli's storefront loudly (and proudly) proclaims it to be a "Manhattan-style" deli. I'd like to think that people know what this means. Two men stand behind the counter taking orders and working the sandwich-and-condiments array: a taller, bearded man, and a shorter one with a round face and a moustache. Both are grey-haired, in their forties or fifties. The scrawny, long-haired, twenty-something guy in line in front of me asks, with noticable Cali accent, "Do you have a vegetarian Reuben?" Beard, rather puzzled, pauses, and then asks, "Vegetarian Reuben? What, just sauerkraut and cheese?" Moustache adds, "We can do that." The guy says, "No, do you have any meat substitute?" Before he can list some examples, Moustache says, "No tofu. No sprouts." Beard simultaneously informs the guy, "We're not from California. We're not from Cambridge." The guy says, "I'm from both." Moustache points at Beard and says, "He knew that." Moustache, passing the guy off to Beard, then looks at me to take my order. I point at the young guy with my eyes, and then roll them skyward. Moustache grins. Manhattan-style, I think. Unless you want cheeze blintzes or potato knishes, this means a meat-thing with a bread-thing. The young guy orders a toasted bagel.

"Sushi is here," reads the e-mail. My company is being bought out, and the (potential) buyers are trying to sugar us into liking them -- in hopes that once the deal goes through, we won't all leave. The quickest way to the heart being the stomach, they've bought us lunch at the office today. Specifically, raw dead fish wrapped in seaweed. Usual among my friends (and co-workers), I don't eat most sushi. I have enough gastro-intestinal problems as it is without putting uncooked aquatic flesh down my gullet. But about half an hour earlier, just as I'd been about to leave and pre-emptively buy my own lunch, our office manager informed me they were also bringing us pad thai, which suits me quite fine. ...quite fine for me, but not for Rick. Rick doesn't eat fish. Or the chicken and shrimp found in pad thai. Or anything else that once had a brain and moved around. Rick surveys the offerings, and purses his lips in annoyance. Not exactly the best way for the buyer to endear itself to the employees, I think to myself. Buying an all-meat lunch for residents of the notoriously leftist Cambridge. Rick just has a Coke.

My girlfriend and I wait for the waitress to return. We already have the regular menus, which are in and of themselves sufficient to please my girlfriend's enviro-hippie vegetarian tastes. This is, after all, a Mexican restaurant, and the prevalence of beans in Mexican food is one of the reasons we came here in the first place. But the menu also invites us to ask for their separate vegetarian menu. The waitresses passes by, and my girlfriend so asks. The waitress returns a minute later, a different laminated sheet in hand. My girlfriend gives it a quick once-over, then puts it down and returns to the regular menu. I give her a look of mild confusion. "Everything on it has fish," she announces. Surprised, I pick up the menu and read it for myself. Sure enough, she's right. Fish. Everywhere. I am reminded of the Dilbert cartoon in which Bob the dinosaur informs someone he is a vegetarian, and the person asks, "Do you eat fish?" Bob replies, "Fish are not vegetables." "It's ok to eat fish," I tell her, quoting Kurt Cobain, "'cos they don't have any feelings." She neither catches the reference nor appreciates the joke. She orders bean burritos. From the regular, non-vegetarian menu.

Our friend Kathy is coming to town, and Mark and I are supposed to be taking her out to dinner. Knowing Kathy's fondness for food that sticks to one's ribs, I ponder Redbones, the world-class barbecue joint in town -- but reconsider since Mark is along. But several minutes later, Mark himself suggests Redbones. "Mark," I respond, "maybe I missed something, but you don't eat meat. Unless you're just gonna gorge on hush puppies and fried okra..." Mark shrugs. "I could pick up a wrap from the place across the street and bring it by." Mark's trying not to be trouble, trying to be considerate of Kathy and myself, trying to acknowledge that he's a minority in an omnivorous world and doesn't warrant special treatment. But ultimately, this plan of his would just mean more trouble. I envision the reaction of the waiter when he asks Mark what he'd like to order and Mark declines, whipping a foil-wrapped log out of his satchel. I envision myself ducking under the table in embarassment. Before Mark can smoke more of whatever he's apparently on, we settle on a nearby Irish pub, which offers entrees of all kinds... and turns out to be for the best anyway, since Redbones doesn't offer black-and-tans. We all order plenty of those.