“It’s Organic”
I love San Francisco. I truly feel like this city belongs to me and that I belong to it. I love that everyone composts and businessmen ride the bus and dogs happily trot leashless behind their owners while on walks. I love how people are total weirdos and it’s just accepted. Oh, and who can forget THE FOOD.
San Francisco has more restaurants per capita than any other city in the US and a ton are organic and locally conscious. People who don’t live here often assume all food in San Francisco is organic, vegan granola sprinkled with quinoa kale chips. Sure, there are places like this but plenty of places also serve great meaty, sloppy dishes that pairs perfectly with a great beer.
Last night I found myself at one of these restaurants. We jumped on the N Judah train and headed to the Haight to meet up with some buds for dinner and drinks. We sat at the long communal table (soooo San Francisco) and ordered our dishes. Our waitress was a cute bleach blonde with a ton of gel in her hair so that it matted down and might not move if she was hung upside-down. Still, she pulled it off somehow which makes no sense.
After a few rounds of beers and eating both small and large plates, we got the check and played the credit card shuffle. I then noticed that my right hand and arm was covered in some sort of viscus honey-type substance. Using my napkin dipped in water, I attempted to clean it off, but it then morphed into a grey rubbery mess that resembled pencil eraser shavings. These little shavings were painfully pulling at my arm hairs when I looked down to notice that this sappy napalm was also on my shirt. I jumped off my seat and investigated under the table and found the source of the sticky mess. Because of it’s viscosity, it wasn’t something I could simply wipe off so the next person who sits there wouldn’t go through this medieval arm hair torture. I decided to do the right thing and tell one of the hostesses.
“Hey there. Just wanted to let you know that there’s something really sticky under that table and it got on my arm and shirt. You may wanna have someone check it out.”
I expected her to reply with something like, “Oh my gosh I’m so sorry!” or “We’ll get it cleaned up right away thank you for telling us.” or, what would have been my favorite reply, “Let me buy you a drink to make up for ruining your shirt.”
The reply I actually got was, “It’s tree sap. It’s an organic tree table.” and then she walked away.
Do you ever have something weird happen to you and you freeze out of shock but then run through the whole thing in your mind for several days after and then come up with an appropriate response? I have been replaying the scene in my head and have come up with the following response:
“Oh it’s an organic table! My bad!!! I thought it was sweatshop, genetically modified, test tube sap that ripped out my arm hair and got on my clothes but, hell, if it’s organic, then I’m totally cool with it and you should TOTALLY just leave it there so that the next person who sits in that seat can join me in my organic sappy bliss. Next time I’m at your restaurant, I may or may not bring in some dog shit, smear it on your bar counter and proudly declare that it is organic and follow it up with a sincere ‘You’re welcome.’ with an indifferent grin and then leave. Awesome have a great night!!!”
So yeah, I get annoyed when people make fun of San Francisco being a bunch of organic hippies, but if people start using the term “organic” as an excuse to fuck shit up or make a crappy product, that’s not cool. So stop that. Also, buy me a new shirt.