Would You Like To Hear About The Specials?

When they seat you at the table, you can already tell something is off. The ambience is already leaked out of the place somehow, maybe a little too much lighting, like the house lights are up when you're trying to watch a play. The room is the same, the staff is the same, the decor is mostly the same, but it's lost something... transportive. Immersive. Intimate. A good restaurant employs all the tricks to direct your senses and deliver the experience of the place, not just the crass, minimalist act of mashing digestibles into your wet food hole. You're not just human, you're a person. All effort is directed to selling the agreed-upon lie that there is no effort, it's just nice because you are nice and you deserve niceness.

Then the day comes when you can tell your table is two sawhorses and a plank of plywood concealed by a few yards of linen. The background sound never settles. The serving staff shuffle and float, distracted. They only sort of apologize when they inform you the menu tonight, despite what's printed, does not include that or that or especially not that, the one thing you specifically came here for. And the cups are plastic and, oh yeah, the fryer doesn't work at all, and would you mind paying in cash? It's not one bad day, you've just found the sweet spot, after the time someone has realized profitability is not in the cards for this particular eatery, but the creditors haven't swooped in quite yet to reclaim the refrigerated dessert display case or the carved cherrywood hostess stand. If it's a place you like, you want to hold on while it's there, so you keep showing up, even though you know the quality is in a death spiral. You can talk yourself into eating off a paper plate, what are you, the queen of England? But a lie is a lie. The spirit is gone from the place. Every day you drive past and it's not padlocked and lightless, you're surprised, until one day, mercifully, you aren't.

As I was walking through the local Ralphs this week, marveling at the smooth expanses of shelf space uncluttered by product, I didn't really get a sense that the store was in trouble, which was helpful because there's nothing quite so upsetting as having your primary source of mandarin oranges, AA batteries and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter drying up and blowing away. I've had to deal with my favorite, life-giving bakery being crushed to powder by the weight of early COVID, so I'm not emotionally prepared to lose another place to stock up on unfashionable carbohydrates. As I wandered aisle to aisle, I found myself amused by the novelty of what was or wasn't available, how it might inconvenience what type of household, but mostly I felt... connected. A part of a whole. It's not that I can't reliably get my hands on Honey Bunches of Oats, it's that none of us can. In this time of division, I was struck by the sense of community I felt with my invisible (or, at best, obscured by masks) neighbors who also can't find bottled unsweetened iced tea any-fucking-where.

I didn't feel like this grocery store was failing; I felt more like all of western civilization was cracking, struggling, maybe even winding up right before my eyes, during the time I was actively trying to be a citizen of it and a patron of its customary abundance and convenience. We're keeping it in the same spot, just maybe downgrading a few things, pawning some of the more expensive stuff (like roads and democracy) to keep us afloat until we turn the corner. Any day now, man. Any day now.

I have some hope. I'm not a nihilist. But I did just sign up for Facebook Dating. I don't think I've given up, but I probably won't understand exactly how I'm dealing until I can get some hindsight.