Pandemic Pondering

Wondering how local eateries were handling the new world order we find ourselves in, I checked out some GrubHub reviews. One that caught my eye referenced an overly frightened delivery driver. Another chastised an unseen delivery guy for hanging his order on the outside doorknob, which unceremoniously crashed to the floor when he opened the door.

My personal favorite: a woman claimed the delivery driver refused to enter her building’s lobby. The driver said the doorman wouldn’t allow it. She said, he said. The young lady had to go down and pick up the order herself. Inconvenienced beyond the pale from her perspective, she refused to accept her dinner gracefully. Vis-à-vis the doorman’s alleged decree, she called the delivery driver a liar and he—not surprisingly—took offense. The response from the restaurant cut to the chase: “Are you aware of what’s going on in the world?”

While on the subject of GrubHub, this contemporary delivery vehicle has brought me back to places and foods that I had pretty much abandoned like McDonald’s and KFC. When I was a kid, KFC was Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s couldn’t accommodate special orders, like asking for a plain hamburger. You know: remove the pickles, chopped onions, and mustard. It was once upon a time a big to-do that often wasn’t done.

While working at a mom-and-pop pet food store in the Little Neck section of Queens forty years ago, one of our lunch options was McDonald’s. Rich, the boss man, would on occasion ask: “Do you want to do a scraping?” That is: order McDonald’s hamburgers without bothering to ask for them plain or with this or that condiment removed. Burger King, at the time, emphasized that special orders didn’t upset them. McDonald’s employees would often just scrape off the stuff anyway, leaving the residue of what was once there on the roll. The pickles and mustard always left their marks and the chopped onions got absorbed into the soggy roll. In the end, we decided to do our own more thorough scrapings.

Fast forward to the present and, lo and behold, McDonald’s can do special orders and remove whatever you want. I’ve done it through GrubHub, which permits you to click on remove this or that, including the meat and roll. But what I have discovered is that McDonald’s burgers, fish fillets, and chicken sandwiches without the various toppings—which I still find intolerable—leave you with solely the main attractions. The toppings, it would seem, give the burgers, fish fillets, and chicken sandwiches necessary cover. Because eating them unadorned clues you in on what you are actually eating—sodium—and they kind of all taste the same. I certainly feel the same, which isn’t particularly good, after eating anything from McDonald's. This is not to say that I won’t order from them again.

While on the subject of food or what passes for food, I was in a local supermarket a couple of days ago. It wasn’t especially crowded, but shoppers were definitely stocking up and behaving more frantically than ever. And it seems like the rules of polite society have been suspended until further notice, just like alternate-side parking rules. I learned that the express line of fifteen items or fewer was no longer the sole province of those with fifteen items or fewer, like me. Not realizing that a woman had a two-month supply of groceries on the conveyor belt, I chose the former express line. To make matters worse she was perpetually questioning a frazzled cashier behind plexiglass about the prices of various items. “Isn’t this on sale? Isn't that on sale?” I considered switching checkouts on a couple of occasions, hesitated, and found myself in the grip of supermarket freeze. That is, I made my choice, was rendered immobile, and lived or died with my decision.

When I finally exited the supermarket battlefront, I noticed it was spring outside. I’d hate to think of this present scenario in the heat and humidity of summertime. Wearing a mask in temperate temperatures is discombobulating enough. I pine for the day when the express line lives up to its name.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)