Thinkin’ Good and Greasy

I am vexed. It was not some stubbed toe of a matter that instigated this state of mind. Like staging Amer-ican firepower in Turkey. Or Gov. Patton’s curious standards of merit promotion. Or even the number and placement of Michael Jackson’s nostrils.

I’m talking a real world everyday problem. The kind that nags. The kind that sends you back to group therapy. Or in front of a warrant court judge, depending upon your degree of lingering inner childhood angst.

Here’s the deal. I stopped for lunch the other day at one of those funky fried chicken places. Not a chain, mind you, but the kind that specializes in wings and wedges and is housed in a painted-over spot that used to be a chain but now smells like a Bangkok marketplace. Such establishments are always on an edgy corner across the street from a cut-rate car painting garage in an ethnically diverse neighborhood where nobody looks like the other parents in your car pool. It’s the kind of joint where you go to eat by yourself after feigning the need to run errands at noon. Because the food is all brown, all fried and so cholesterrific that you don’t wish to be the one at the office to offend the vegan at the next desk over.

I ordered the spicy dark meat special — two crispy-skinned thighs containing a minimum decade’s requirement of paprika, three Lincoln logs camouflaged as golden double-breaded wedges, a hockey puck disguised as a dinner roll, a dollop of green-speckled mayo the menu calls slaw and a 55-gallon drum of diet cola to cut the heat. It was all served through an opening in bullet-proof glass with a pallet of tissue-paper napkins and a list of cardiologists with offices in the immediate vicinity.

There were no LEOs to read. Actually, that was a good thing because I’d already devoured the issue except for Dave Barry’s column, which I rarely read because it always pisses me off. He’s syndicated in about a thousand papers, and funnier, richer and considerably more famous than me. The bastard.

But I had brought along a book that proved to be the proximate cause of my vexation. (Which issue I shall address in a moment.) But first I must mention that the book was written by Tony Kornheiser. That really pissed me off. He’s read by millions, funnier than me — and Dave Barry for that matter — and richer. Plus, he has a daily network radio show. And a daily network TV show. So he is also more famous than me. The bastard.

I intended to peruse the collection of essays nonetheless. It had been loaned by a fellow who read it recently on vacation. He advised he laughed so maniacally in the waiting room of the Birmingham airport during a layover that a woman called security. The chicken shack seemed a safe place to read it. The security guard had nodded off in a corner booth, his head resting comfortably face down in an order of the 50 Wing Special.

My problem was this. I was in full husko gordo mode, reveling in the pleasure of the fried delights on the tray before me. My face was greased up. More important, so were my fingers. When it came time to turn the page. I didn’t know what to do. The napkins, such as they are at an eatery like this, weren’t really doing the job of effectively cutting the grease accumulating with each bite. Even after finger licking. Besides, I was having trouble keeping the book open to the correct page. Holding my place with an elbow while scooping a swallow of slaw, then leaning over for a slurp of soda, had already caused sciatica. The guy who lent me the book is a Cat fan, but that was no justification to permanently smudge his book with chicken-fried oil fingerprints.

I never figured it out. So I let the book close of its own accord mid-essay. I ended up staring out the window at a customer across the street who was apparently advising the garage manager that he was less than satisfied with the $59.95 chartreuse paint job on his vintage Camaro. Frankly, I couldn’t blame him. The car looked like my slaw but not as tasty.

When I described my book-reading dilemma to a co-worker, she suggested I carry one of those cookbook holders in my car for use on such occasions. Not a bad idea. Wonder if they come in speckled chartreuse?

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