There’s a restaurant in El Paso that my parents like to go to.
A restaurant like a factory.
You sit down at your table. You get menus. You order. You get a pot of coffee if you’ve ordered coffee. The food comes shortly thereafter. The plates are taken away….
As I write the sequence, I see that it is inevitable, a natural sequence--except for the business about a pot of coffee....but I need to add something else, like, shall we say, “Whoosh!”-to indicate the speed, the absence of a time to catch one’s breath between the various stages of the process. I see that speed, absence of an interval, absence of a pause---all as a form of fear.... fear that we are not doing what we are supposed to, moving quickly to a goal that we know in advance.... because we always know what we are doing, don't we? Not allowed a moment for thought or reflection, NO! we wouldn't want that... better action, action, action. NOT dialogue! Heaven forbid! NOt that! Please. My life is not boring!
The time between the steps is too brief. Real food cannot be prepared so quickly. Fresh food cannot be prepared so quickly. Cannot. Plainly what we’re getting is mostly prepared in advance. (Well, here’s a country that doesn’t know the meaning of the words “fresh bread”—unless you go to some pretentious special shop, itself an insult to the word ‘culture’….)
So, in the end, I feel as though I have gotten onto a conveyor belt. It’s not just that the food is relatively tasteless; it’s the whole process.
What’s that you say? Did I hear a voice tell me that I’ve just betrayed my origins?
Oh, you mean my class origins? Or, in more pretentious but no less unegalitarian language, my socio-economic class?
You are saying we like to eat in cheap restaurants? Are you suggesting that I should be ashamed because I am not a child of the capitalist class? Or their overly-paid servants?
Well, that sort of class consciousness wasn’t what I wanted to talk about, but you’ve raised it. America, a very class conscious, un-egalitarian society…. Something else I don’t like.
Oh that angels would carry me away! I have grown tired of the stale air of inequality, the desultory drumbeat of the poison they call efficiency….
No reflection?
Comment by a sane voice : You pretentious ass! Haven't you noticed that people sit around in this restaurant after they've eaten?
The Yankee Gringo responds: Yes, I did. That is somewhat better. But, then again, it's as if they've done their job, and only then did they allow themselves to rest. Eating is still conceptualized as efficient work.....
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