Priorities

Aha! So I get a call from La Bella a Bologna (aka Vice), who attempts to coach me on the buying of cheeses. Some friends are coming by later for wine and cheese (or, as Mrs. Buttles kindly offered: Whine and Cheez). So Vice, in her infinite cheese wisdom, recommends Murray’s Cheese Shop, and their aged gouda and aged goat cheeses.

“Yeah, gimme a slice of that aged gouda,” I tell the Murray’s counter guy, replete with satisfaction that I am significantly New Yorkerish in my deli-counter demands.

He gives me a slice of nutty, nearly butterscotchy aged gouda, and I give Counter Guy a thumb’s up.

He slices, he wraps, and I am suddenly saddled with a $9 chunk of cheese. Okay. Regardless, I need a couple more. We go for aged goat, on Vice’s recommendation. Mild, pleasantly white. Oh, that’s a $7 slice, thanks. Well, Counter Guy, got anything on the lower end to round out my party cheeses? Counter Guy kindly offers a $9.99/lb asiago, which I tell him to cut heftily for me.

The we do olives. A mix.
Crackers. Two kinds.
We browse, wondering how much food we have really gathered at Murray’s in comparison to how many friends will actually be eating between wine swilling.

It’s a $35 dilemma.

I leave Murray’s. I wander past an ice cream store, and choose to heed a once-a-year craving for a cone. Straciatella, please, I tell Ice Cream Guy, only to look up at the board to see that my cone will cost me $3.50.

I pay.
It’s very good actually, with a nearly alcoholic taste of vanilla and slices of chocolate scattered throughout. I sublimate the pain of paying that much for ice cream.

With Murray’s bag in one hand and cone in the other, I pass again on the way home the kid who asked if I had a minute for gay and lesbian rights. The first time I’d passed him I had shaken my head no and offered two thumbs up. On the way back, I realized I had no reason not to ask him what he was looking to talk to people about.

“I blew you off before, I’m sorry,” I told the kid.

He was shilling for the HRC. Interesting stuff, but when he pulled out his clipboard that had the little check boxes for cash donations, I held up my ice cream cone and said, “I have no job and this ice cream cone just cost me $3.50.”

He nodded, sagely, and gave me a sticker.