My first delivery Saturday was to one of the outdoor-entry studio apartments in a (relatively) low-rent section of our delivery area (for the record: I lived for two years in an indoor-entry studio apartment in this same low-rent section). I made the sub, bagged up the fries, and was out the door. I banged on the door, the blinds parted as someone inside looked out, then the door opened. The person who answered the door was a short, squat, fat woman who instantly hocked a lugie on the patio. She took the food over to her table — one of those cheap ones you can get at Target for $10 — and proceeded to open the sub up and start picking at it.

She started making uh-uh noises, re-wrapped the sub, thrust it back into the brown paper bag the rest of her order was in, and threw it back at me. “There’s no fraaaahd onions,” she said, slamming the door in my face. D’oh! My fault, I’d forgot to put the fried onions on the sub. I cursed because this meant I would have to go back to the store, remake the sub, then bring it back down. Once back at the store, I dumped some fried onions onto the sub, remade her one fresh — as a gesture of good will — and was back at her door ten minutes later.

She picked apart both subs, without ever saying “Oh, how nice of you to make me another”, then started making those “uh-uh” noises again. She threw both subs back into the bag, handed it back to me, and said: “These ain’t no fraaaahd onions” showing me a limp soggy onion hanging off her swollen finger. “It alright, never mind.” And again, she slammed the door in my face. The door opened again as I was walking back to my car and she was like a machine gun firing lugies — but by that time I was in my car and safe from attack. Hah! Me: 1 Lady: 0

We don’t actually have a frier at the indy shop. So when people order “fried onions” on their cheese steaks (cooked through the oven, then again in the “hopper”), what they’re getting are regular, unfried onions, run through the oven with water in a tin, with a sprinkling of the greasy-crap that passes for butter we get from Sysco. They burn up nicely, and I’d imagine they’re tasty — most of the regulars order cheese steaks, and most of those who order cheese steaks order ‘em with fried onions — but I don’t know that they actually qualify as fried onions. Maybe, ‘oven-ied onions’ is what we should call them.

But, we don’t. We call them “fried onions”, and most everyone is okay with that. And truthfully, if I was getting a whole sub for free, I’d go along with the ruse too. “These ain’t fraaahd onions! Oh, I get one for free? Well, okay, these are fraaaahd onions then.”

The ironic thing, as it turned out, is that she didn’t get her order for free. Back at the store I was unwrapping the subs to show Sketchy how much she’d ripped into them — seriously, it’d be like detonating a bomb in a house to see how well the construction crew put up the support beams — and my eye caught something green. Not green like a lugie, or green like lettuce. No, green like a $20 bill that had gotten caught up in the sub’s wrapper.

The only thing I can figure is that the lady had the money on the table when she was inspecting the food, and accidently rolled the bill up with the butcher paper when she’d finished inspecting the sub for “fraaaahd onions.”

I suppose the nice thing to do would’ve been to go back and return the money to her.

On the other hand:

Two wasted cheese-steak subs: $12
One wasted order of fries: $2.25
One bottle of sprite (THAT SHE KEPT!): $1.25
Mileage (Double): $2
Spitting Lugies at Me: $2.50
Subtotal: 20.00
Tip: $0.
Total: $20.00

Bill paid! Thank youuuuuu!!!!