Enjoy Your Food!
Wisdom from the drive-thru.
A little over a month ago, I went, as I often do, to pick my wife up at the bus. She told me she hadn’t yet had dinner, which is what I hoped she’d say. This meant we could pull into the Taco Bell which is right across the street.
We went through the drive-thru, which is a rarity, and as the woman handed us our bag of treasures, she called out “enjoy your food!”
She said it in a singsong-y way. Not mockingly, but truly pleasant. “Enjoy your FOOO-oood!”
Yes, absolutely. Enjoy your food.
At home we quickly began repeating the phrase “enjoy your FOOO-ood!” to one another at each meal. And then not just at meals. “I’m leaving to go to the Y and need to stop for something at Home Depot after.” “Okay, enjoy your FOOOO-oood!”
The other day we retuned to the Taco Bell. I am a little sheepish about this because there are several legitimate sit-down Mexican restaurants and taquerias near me that I have never entered. Eventually they will close and it will be my fault. But return we did to Taco Bell because Taco Bell is fantastic.
Even though it was empty it took a long while to get our order because Taco Bell, like every other restaurant in America, prioritizes Door Dash/GrubHub over the people who actually wish to dine inside. (There have been several articles about this, I am not making it up.) Eventually, though, my bean-and-cheese burrito, a mind-numbingly delicious sludge of sodium and lard that, when topped with Taco Bell’s proprietary Fire Sauce, transubstantiates into handheld ambrosia, was ready. I grabbed the tray and then I heard the instruction:
“Enjoy your FOOO-ooood!”
As I was in such a hurry to chow down, I did not get a good look at her. She vanished into the back, where the ground beef and sour cream guns live. At this point, I feel like I shall never actually see this suburban sage. Nor will she ever know how much her battle cry has impacted me.
I am reminded, of course, of Warren Zevon, who went on Late Night with David Letterman in late October 2002. Letterman, who adored Zevon, dedicated the whole program to him; there were no other guests. That’s because they both knew that Zevon had terminal cancer. During their conversation, Letterman asked how his diagnosis had changed him. Zevon, known for his sense of humor, replied “you put more value on every minute… you’re reminded to enjoy every sandwich.” He said other things about family, and the joy of live performance, but that throwaway line resonated. At the end of the show, after he played “Roland the Headless Thomson Gunner,” Dave came up to him at the piano and repeated, sotto voce, to “enjoy every sandwich.”
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Last night I went to the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey and saw Emanuel Ax sit alone at a piano and play masterpieces by Beethoven and Schumann from memory. (He also played a relatively new piece, variations of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, by John Corigliano; for that he read from sheet music on an iPad.)
Everything about the evening was spectacular — from the phở I had at the Vietnamese restaurant beforehand to our lucky parking spot out front. There even was a concert pre-talk where two Princeton eggheads yapped about sonata form. (They were terrific, truly.)
But there was one problem, one that I was prepared to shrug away and forget about, but I just received a “thank you for coming, please fill out this survey” email. Like every normal person, I usually hit delete when I get such requests, but this time (which just so happens to coincide with a time in which I should be doing some work) I wrote the following:
Hi! I was going to keep this opinion to myself, but since this survey ended up in my inbox, I figured I would take a few minutes and voice a complaint about last night’s event. Luckily, this is a very SOLVABLE problem. Last night I saw Emanuel Ax, quite possibly one of the finest pianists in the history of the form, perform a magnificent concert. And the stage was absolutely filthy. I was humiliated for Mr. Ax. It was a sign of disrespect. The floor between the wings and his piano was covered in DUST and little pieces of (what appeared to be) wood. There was no one at the McCarter with a mop or a broom? It would have taken a total of five minutes to make the stage presentable. I am far from a clean freak, but it was the first thing my wife and I noticed when we sat down. “Why does the stage look like the set of Dark Shadows?” I trust this was an oversight, and not how you typically treat artists of this caliber. It would be nice if Mr. Ax were to make a return visit, but he might be worried about wearing his good shoes!. (Everything else was splendid.)
I am a little worried that what I wrote may get someone in trouble, but hopefully it won’t. Hopefully it will have an impact! But more than anything, I hope this email is printed out and hung in the office under the banner “psycho of the month” or something.
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Last week saw some work I am proud of end up on the internet. You can click here to read my thoughts on Melania at Foreign Policy, and click here to read my interview with Michael Almereyda and Elina Lowensöhn about the film Nadja at Vanity Fair. I also wrote a review of the Luc Besson Dracula for Fangoria that you can read here. I will not link to the sponsored content gigs I gladly accept (and wish there were more of, believe me!) but it somehow feels unethical to share them. If you come across them in the wild, that’s fair game. As ever, you can, and should, tune in to The Daily Zig and The Reel Schmooze.