Fogy Fantasy

I stalk into the kitchen and fix the whippersnapper cook with a fierce gaze.  “What is this?” I demand, holding a leaf of baby spinach between my thumb and forefinger.

The unfortunate youth knows he’s in trouble from the look on my face and from the fact that I’ve left the dining room and entered his domain carrying my crispy crab sandwich.  At least he knows the answer to the question.  “Spinach,” he says.

"Seven tiny, limp, raw, undressed spinach leaves do nothing for a sandwich,” I reply.  My voice is ominous, but I do not roar.  I have a ways to go in this conversation, and like a Shakespearean actor launching into “King Lear,” I’m holding a great deal in reserve. 

“The bread,” I go on, “is too heavy for these puny crab cakes.  They are lost.”   I edge up the volume slightly, “And where is the aioli?” 

He points to a tiny dab of substance that resembles the product of a two-year-old’s runny nose, though greatly inferior in quantity. 

“Did you administer it with an eyedropper?” I inquire.  (Sarcasm is perfectly permissible in fogy fantasy.) 

The cook remembers what his father told him about the advisability of a solid background in computer science.  He stammers unintelligibly.

I go on, “Aioli is a sauce. There has to be enough to give a hearty flavor.  It is essentially a fat. It should also provide necessary richness.” 

As I turn on my heel, the would-be cook takes off his apron and flings it on the kitchen floor.  My fury is at crescendo as I reenter the dining room and stride toward the door to the street. 

A group of people are celebrating their recent arrival at legal drinking age, by lunching at the bar.  They glance nervously in my direction.  My face is a sky of black cloud, my voice thunder.  “Vodka and apple juice do not constitute a martini anywhere in the known universe,” I observe. 

They tremble.