Iceberg Lettuce

By Word Rubble

I had no idea the old codger liked to cool his testicles in the iceberg lettuce.

I was a cashier at The Pick N’ Lick, a bottom-of-the-barrel buffet restaurant — your typical scarf-and-barf. It had been another day over the century mark and I felt sorry for the homeless drifter. He looked worn out and sweaty. How could I know that by giving him a complimentary meal, he’d try to rust his slinky in the salad bar? I had only wanted to help the guy, not get him arrested for lewd behavior.

Consequently, when I arrived at work the next morning, I knew I would get shit-canned. The patrons in the restaurant from the night before had been understandably appalled and upset. Several of them could be seen mumbling incoherently afterward, and one agitated woman had to be restrained from blinding herself with the salad tongs.

I was tired of helping my fellow man. There was no percentage in it.

When I entered the restaurant, a line was already forming in the cattle trough, as I liked to call it. At peak hours, these lines would get so long that young children matured into adulthood, had families of their own, and filed for social security benefits — all before they reached the cashier.

Penny, a young brunette, was working the register today and when she saw me pushing through the crowd, she started waving and hopping up and down. “Hey, Grant,” she said, and then she sang a mock children’s song, “You’re getting fired…You’re getting fired.”

I joined her behind the counter. “And I once considered you a friend. Why?”

“Oh, shut up,” she said with a grin. “Everyone has been talking about you.”

Penny informed me that Rodrigo, our manager, had conveniently called in sick and that Thornton, the area supervisor, was on the premises and wanted to see me.

“Well, we know what Thorn intends to do,” I said. “Where is he? I might as well get this over with.”

“I think he’s in the storage room with Rosa,” Penny said, trying to suppress a giggle. “She’s in trouble, too.”

I frowned at Penny and her interminable glibness. Then, with amusement, I watched a commotion brewing in the line.

Customers were leaping aside to avoid the stormy vortex of activity known as Mona, our five-foot-two warrior server with a perpetual take-no-prisoners attitude on her face. She burst through the scattering throng and bustled past the counter. I considered feigning a wave but lost my nerve. She was the most feared employee at The Pick-N-Lick.

Digby, another wage slave to the corporate chow line industry, and the human approximation of the Pillsbury Doughboy, shuffled in not long after Mona. We had yet to ascertain Digby’s job description. Even the manager, who had hired him as a favor to a friend, was unsure. On most days, Digby stood motionless behind the counter, smirking at the hordes of hungry customers and doing nothing else. After a while, we thought of him as an immovable object, just a pillar to hold the ceiling up.

With the commotion concluded, I headed to the storage room for my confrontation with Thorn.

I hurried down a narrow passage flanked by ugly wood paneling and a sticky tile floor. The Pick N’ Lick had lost her girlish figure over the years.

At the storage room, I gave a quick courtesy knock at the door, turned the knob, and stepped inside.

I immediately found myself shrouded in darkness, but something palpable, like an unmistakable proximity of body heat in the room, told me I wasn’t alone. Then, out of the black came a decidedly ungratifying sound:

“Oh, mamasita! Close your eyes and think of making tacos. I’ve got your sauce right here.”  

I felt a smirk pirouette across my face. This clandestine poke-fest seemed too priceless to keep on the hush-hush. And since I had already been intrusive, I decided to pee in the punch bowl and get a full diploma in meddlesome jerk, with perhaps a graduate degree as officious prick. I fumbled along the wall for the light switch and clicked it on, hoping to be amused while tragically forgetting who I had gone to see in the storage room.

The shock was substantial. Nothing could have prepared me for the indecorous sight of Thornton’s bare buttocks doing the ebb and flow between the parted thighs of Rosa, a middle-aged Pick N Lick server, who, with her dress scrunched up to her hips, lay sprawled across a table.

Thorn, tall and gangly, with bony hindquarters that sprouted crops of dangling skin tags, a cruciferous nightmare on his cheeky caboose, looked like a grotesque version of Ichabod Crane, with his pants down to his equally bony ankles.

I now understood why a day earlier that unbalanced woman near the iceberg lettuce had tried to blind herself with the salad tongs. Some things — like Thorn’s gluteus maximus lamentably disrobed before my pitiful eyes — were never meant to be seen. A grim side-show attraction nobody wanted tickets to.

This entire thought process, of course, transpired in mere seconds. When the lights had come on, Rosa screamed in embarrassment, shouting, “What the fuck? I thought you locked the door!” And Thornton, more flustered than startled, whirled around and unceremoniously drained his vein on the linoleum.

I backed out of the room, hoping to appear apologetic.

“Perhaps I came at a bad time,” I said. “I’ll be going now. Uh…yeah…”

Out in the lobby, I tried to process the insanity of what had just happened.

Most normal-minded people, when engaged in a dangerous liaison, whether in a broom closet or a dingy restroom stall, possess the wherewithal to lock the damn door. It’s the least thing you can do to grant some peace of mind — especially when you’re there to get a piece.

By then, Rosa had emerged from the kitchen, her hands nervously ironing out the rumples in her dress.

Oh, God, I thought. This was awkward. I avoided eye contact with her, but noticed in my periphery she was making a beeline straight toward me. Maybe if I looked down, she’d think I was preoccupied with something, like counting the fibers in the carpet — about as productive as I usually got — and leave me alone. But suddenly, her pointed shoes appeared in my field of vision, pointed directly at me.

“Grant!” Rosa said. “Look at me, dammit.”

I raised my head and made eye contact with Rosa.

TO BE CONTINUED…

To be written (Scene with Rosa)

To be written (in Thornton’s office being reprimanded) “What happens in the Pick N Lick stays in the Pick N Lick.”

In the next scene, Grant wanders back to the counter and Penny is there nibbling on a container of pre-prepared organic food she bought at the grocery. Grant comments.

Note: This passage is actually part of a conversation. Grant is telling a fellow worker about the future of the food industry. He gives a lecture.

“Let’s face it, Penny. If you see “organic” on your produce, you know it’ll come with a higher price tag. We accept the additional cost because organic vegetables are better for the environment. But do you know the real reason organic food is almost 50% more expensive?”

“I’m genuinely afraid you’ll tell me,” Penny replied.

“You’re paying extra for the BUGS.”

“Oh, please, Grant,” Penny protested, rolling her eyes in disgust as she nibbled on her salad, but pausing mid-bite to inspect a leaf of kale.

“This proliferation of things that creep, slither, and ooze is so ubiquitous in organic food that in all fairness they should add the following to the nutrition label on a bag: Total fat 1g; Sodium 30mg; Carbohydrates 7g; Assorted Bug Parts 3000g, which may include Flying Gnats, Big Fat Mealworms, Creeping Caterpillars, and Various Insect Eggs and Marmorated Stink Bug Excrement.”

Penny mimed a gag reflex, suppressing an urge to void the contents of her stomach

“And Penny, did you know those chirping intruders that rob us of our sleep in the night and rub their wings together to attract the equivalent of a cricket-inspired “booty call,” actually provide 31g of protein, 1.8g of healthy omega-3’s, and 7.2g of fiber in a single serving? Why spend exorbitant amounts of money on health food when you could get the same nutrition from a handful of blowflies sprinkled with cicada larvae. And if that seems daunting, remember, a spoonful of sugar helps the millipedes go down.”

“Grant! Now you’ve ruined my favorite childhood movie for me. I’ll never watch Mary Poppins the same way again.”

“None of us will, Penny,” I said. “Who knew these squirmy, misshapen little monstrosities we’ve crushed under our shoes and stomped out of existence since the dawn of man are powerhouses of edible goodness with protein, beneficial fats, vitamins, and crunchy fibrous bits that get stuck between your teeth and are damn near impossible to remove even with a jackhammer.

“Yes, who knew?” Penny replied, with a suddenly solemn expression.

“Indeed,” I continued. “Nothing says ‘slicing up freshness’ like a caramelized Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, quartered and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and chocolate-covered ants.”

“The available food chain has transformed dramatically. Why let the early bird get the worm when you could slurp that wiggly creepy-crawly like a string of mom’s homemade spaghetti. There’s an untapped fast food industry here that’s chomping at the mandibles to invade the unsuspecting kitchens of drive-thrus across America. Let’s replace the empty calories in a Big Mac, for instance, with healthier alternatives that offer new tastes and textures — the gangly legs and spindly antennae, of course, strictly optional.”

“Teenagers in their “Bug in the Box” uniforms, all of them equipped with fly swatters to ensure the very freshest cuts of insect entrails, would now upsell your order with “Would you like dung beetles with that?”

“And since kids already love to play with bugs, their new Happy Meal would thrill and delight them as a whole battalion of army ants crawls out of the box, followed by an extremely pissed-off emperor scorpion that scurries under the car seat, climbs up the pants leg of dad, and causes him to crash the family SUV into a ditch.”

A couple strolled up to the counter, eyeing the menu on the wall. Penny greeted them with a nervous smile, nervous that they might stay. I did the sensible thing, of course, and included them in my dissertation.

“We’ve entered new frontiers in nutrition, folks! This could be the birth of the next all-American meal. It’s time to become insectivores and think outside the bun.”

The couple turned and bolted for the door. But I continued, unabated. A great orator must never be rattled by the pillories of dissent. Besides, Penny remained as my sole hostage. She had pretended to pull a long cricket leg out of her food before twitching convulsively, as if being held in a strait-jacket.

“So in conclusion.”

Penny sighed deeply, wiping her brow, muttering under her breath, “Praise the lord. There is a god.”

“Instead of reaching for that greasy pork sandwich — essentially a widow-maker with cheese — chow down on a meaty, blimp-sized grub worm. You can toss them in smoothies or use them as slow-moving croutons on your salad. Just stick a fork in it — if it’s still moving. You’ll be as snug as a bug in a yeast-leavened pita pocket. Your dietician will rejoice, and all the spiders in your neighborhood will plot their revenge against you for f-ing with their food chain. But your body will thank you for your sound investment in good nutrition. Remember, you are what you eat.”

“Bon appétit!” I proclaimed.

“No bon appétit for me, Grant! I’m officially done with food. Eating is overrated,” Penny replied, flinging her salad into a bin under the counter, her face several shades of green. “Now somebody get me an industrial-sized pack of Rolaids.”

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