Adventure and Apple Pie - Part II

This year when we were in San Francisco I witnessed a cable car driver yell at some poor tourist telling him that “just because he is a tourist doesn’t mean he can do whatever the fuck he wanted”. The poor bloke was trying to quickly move out of the way of all the millions of people clambering onto the cable car and climbed out over the wooden seat on the side of the car. The reason he was doing it in the first place was because the cable car driver was shouting at all of us to move aside. I thought that was rude.




We went to a bar in San Francisco later that night and were only served one drink. The bar guy completely ignored us to watch the TV in the corner. We were the only two people in the bar and got the hell out. Later we were told by the next bartender Tommy, that the best advice we could take from him was to pay up (a tip) to the bar person after every round. We were shocked, firstly why didn’t the first guy just tell us that and secondly, what the fuck? After every round? We learned to get a tab quick and tip at the very end or else drinking in the States would have been an exorbitantly expensive course of action for us. This same bar guy had his own business card that had him on the front with a black background with him lighting a cigarette. He thought he was just Uber cool. He was a tosser. He told us there was no point in him travelling. Why would he waste his money on going anywhere else when everybody else came to him? It is all about them sometimes.


When ordering a beer at anytime it always seemed that they had whatever we wanted in ‘lite’ beers but not in heavies. Lite beer is so very common in America on both coasts and in the middle bit. I asked the barman once assuming it was because of drinking safety and drink driving and guess in hindsight should not have been shocked at all by the reply. “It’s lower in calories”. We were told as if we were idiots.


Wow, we were blown away. Huge consumption of fast food, chips and nuts to snack on in the bars while drinking, but at least the beer is lite. Seems a little peculiar to me.


The nature in which Americans say things is astounding to hear. I got such a shock on an occasion when in a restaurant in America, waiting patiently for service, to hear American’s yelling out “Right here, waiter right here.” The waiters would toddle over and take their orders immediately. It was so weird. They certainly have some interesting ways of putting things. When in Carl’s Jnr (a burger place) I heard customers say to staff,


“Now, I need to get me a cheese burger, and I need to get me some fries to go with that and I need a Dr Pepper, oh and I really need you to super size that?”


Why do they need it? Want it? Yes, need? I don’t think so. And the super sized meals they sell there are inconceivable. I watched children drink what they call sodas from two litre containers for breakfast and eat fries from a bucket, prior to a burger. One word comes to mind, obesity and Australia is there too, it’s hideous. We are the baby brother copying everything America does.


In the small Californian coastal town of Morro Bay, I inquired from a lady about whether or not the information kiosk she worked at had postage stamps. The lady looked at me and said genially like she’d popped a few Valium’s that morning,


“We surely do not.”


What? ‘They surely do not’, and wasn’t she in high spirits about that.


Sometimes when asking for something in what you believe to be easy to understand, clear as crystal English and get that blank stare and complete misinterpretation is when it gets not only frustrating but incredibly astonishing. It is all English yet simple words and phrases do not get through, like coffee and banana. Like New York suddenly becoming the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik. You have to develop an American accent to be understood or else you could end up anywhere with anything. I was so frustrated by it once that I asked the person on the phone when inquiring about flights from New York to Washington DC and was given Iceland as my destination when she read it back, “Am I not speaking English to you?” I had to hang up immediately or else that was a very smashed up telephone I was paying for on check out. I could suddenly see where Russel Crowe was coming from.


I’ve never seen so many walkie-talkies as in America, in restaurants. Explains part of the obesity problem I guess. Staff do not have to walk through a section of a restaurant to talk to other staff. They each stand in their corner and report the stage of each table, which gets back to the cashier who is ushering people into the restaurant when given the green light.


“Table four’s on dessert that’d be a quick change in five I imagine unless the old gal goes in for another piece of pie.”


“Victor Charlie hotel, that’d be a big 9-0. Keep me posted and I’ll send the next lard arses in.”


“Roger that.”


And this occurs even though there are empty tables. It happens even when there are only five people in the place. What is the raison d'être please? I am confused.


The meal sizes absolutely blow me away when I am there. Almost all of them are preceded with soup and crackers, bread rolls and a salad with numerous choices in dressing. Now the tricky thing is that you have to eat the salad first. If you don’t, you will wait forever for your main meal because in America, the salad comes and is eaten before the meal and it is huge. If you ask for anything additional you will get triple the amount expected and the meals come with fries and have every ‘extra’ known to man and all the condiments ever manufactured. You almost need a table for six for two, just to fit the condiments on it. There is the tomato ketchup, the mustards, the sugars - white, brown, caster, raw, sweet and low, salt and pepper, maple syrup, Tabasco sauce, butter and margarine, chilli sauce, jelly’s (jams) and BBQ sauce, just to start with.


Ordering the food can take half an hour even for a simple sandwich. For example if I simply wanted to order the easiest thing out, a ham and cheese sandwich it would go like this,


“I’d (need to get me) like a ham and cheese sandwich please.”


“Hi. Sure. What kind of bread would you like?”


“Just bread. Any bread.”


“We have wholemeal, rye, light rye, dark rye, white, soy and linseed, multi grain and pumpernickel.”


“Umm white.”


“Sure. Thick slice, regular or thin sliced?”


“Regular”


“Sure. Would you like butter, margarine, non dairy or no spread?”


“Butter?”


“Sure Madam, it’s your sandwich. What ham would you like?”


“Ham?”


“You wanted ham and cheese?”


“Yes, I did.”


“We have Virginia, shoulder, leg, round, smoked, lite, honeyed, champagne, ham spread.”


“Virginian.”


“Now Madam your cheese selection what would that be today?”


“Just plain cheese would be great.”


“We have American, cheddar, Swiss, mild, Philadelphian, Dutch smoked, cream cheese, tasty, lite, blue vein, old smoky…”


“I’ll have American cheese please.”


“Sure and any condiments with that we’ve got mayonnai..”


“Mayonnaise would be super.”


“To go?”


“God, yes.”


“Fries with that?”


“No, on its own thank you?”


“Now on your salad? We have ranch dressing, thousand Isl..”


“No, just the sanga.”


“I beg your pardon Madam. Was there something else?”


Jesus no. “Just the sandwich no salad, thank you.”


Do you see my point and that poor bitch hadn’t even started asking about a beverage because even when you order water, it comes with four or five choices because it’s bottled and it’s fizzy and there are brands and it’s everything else.

Do not start me on coffee.

Mmm Yankee diet!