Monday, December 04, 2006

I Ate Garrison Keillor's Sandwich

[This one's for Lo.]

No shit. I ate Garrison Keillor's sandwich today for lunch.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, Nina's Coffee Café, the redundantly-named coffee shop1 where I do most of my writing, is directly above the bookstore that GK just opened, Common Good Books. Today Mr. Keillor wandered upstairs into Nina's at lunchtime and ordered a sandwich, an egg salad croissant to be specific. He got it to go in a paper bag and hurried off, no doubt to do jello shots with Sharon Stone or whatever it is famous people do when they're not doing the things they're famous for.

But they gave poor Garrison the wrong bag. He got my friend Julie's vegetable wrap instead. Julie, canny coffee shop diner that she is, checked the order and discovered the error. She of course got a new vegetable wrap. And yours truly got the egg salad croissant.

The reason I got the sandwich is that the guy who made it is a friend of mine, Jason, and he knew quite well that an egg salad croissant is not something that long retains the flavor and freshness for which Nina's is so deservedly known, so he gave me the bag and told me the story.

The sandwich was good. A little messy, but good.

And poor Garrison got stuck with a veggie wrap. It's probably better for him in the long run. He probably needs to watch his cholesterol.

But I bet he's somewhere right now, gazing forlornly at his perky little vegetable wrap and wondering if he can get away with chucking it at Sharon Stone's head while her back is turned and quickly pretending the guy next to him did it when she turns around ready to bite someone's head off. That's what I'd do with it anyway. And as for the mysterious fate of his egg salad croissant?

I bet he thinks the Ukrainians got it. And I for one ain't telling him different.

-- Hulles

1I'm going to keep calling it that as long as they keep calling it that.


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dammit Hulles, can't you ever let me win?

La Espia T. said...

I'm sad he is in the old art store I used to frequent back in my "I"m going to be a fine artist!" days.

Egg salad is best served on a croissant. yum

Hulles said...

Lo,light of my life, etc., you won big when you (sort of) got me. Humility is not one of my stronger traits, obviously.

And T. of the bootylicious persuasion, I wasn't aware of the artist phase. You certainly are the multi-talented Ms. Thing. Will you design my new tattoo?

La Espia T. said...

"NEW" tattoo?????? OH my! The things we don't know about Hulles.

Jack of all trades and master of none. That's me. ;)

Hulles said...

The one you design for me will be my fifth. It needs to be a dragon; the other four are. I collect them, if you can call tattoos a collection. I got all of them out of the country: Scotland, Switzerland, Canada and Iceland.

I would like nothing better than to show them to you some time. "Come on up, I'll show you my tattoos..."

Stephen Blackmoore said...

Better to have the fat boy's sandwich than have to listen to him drone on and on about the baseball game where Miss Miranda, the old woman who lived down by the river and smelled of leeks, set her dog Poochie, she of the nasty teeth and flaming red fur, the kind of fur you could light your way by in the dark of night because it would glow like a thousand suns in the dim winter afternoons, upon Darryl Sunshine, the relief pitcher who'd had a bad break in the minor leagues, accidentally killing a seal with a fastball in a way too complicated for anyone to really understand.

And then Poochie, poor old Poochie, tore through the outfield after ripping Mr.Sunshine's left arm off, spraying blood across the mound, everyone running and falling and sliding as they tried to catch old Poochie and that golden arm, the arm that won a hundred games for Lake Wobegone, the arm that held his sweetie every night, the arm that killed the seal and cursed Sunshine to a lifetime of drink.

And Sunshine just lying there, bleeding out in the afternoon light, coating the mound with a thick layer of red. And then, with whimper and a sigh. He died. A quiet man, he'd never made much fuss, and even on his dying day, why, why Mr. Sunshine just lay there. Bleeding and shivering. His body going into systemic shock from loss of blood until his brain could no longer handle the lack of oxygen and shut itself down into that deep, deep slumber of death.

Dear god, that man can go on.

Hulles said...

I read this and cried my eyes out. I cried for poor Mr. Sunshine, I cried for Poochie, but most of all I cried for the seal. Life can be so cruel sometimes. I hope the seal had a happy and fulfilled life prior to the fastball, or at the very least got laid once.

I actually really do like this story. Ever thought about writing professionally?

Hulles said...

What I really like about re-reading your story a number of times is that I can perfectly hear Garrison's voice telling this. Really good work, thanks.

And I meant to say earlier that I haven't noticed that GK's particularly fat. Tall, very tall, but not fat.

anne frasier said...

haha! loved your story, hulles.
and i could also hear GK's voice in that classic stephen blackmoore comment.

Hulles said...

Thanks Anne. In spite of your taking some time off, you remain in the Tuonela Wisconsin of my mind.