First the exchange, exacty as it occured in real life, and then the gloss.
The cashier: "Breakfast of Champions?"
Me: "Well, I’m a vegetarian."
The cashier: "Yeah, I know, all organic."
So here’s the story. We were driving across the western, uninhabited part of South Dakota, heading toward the glorious Black Hills and the Badlands. Somewhere out there, I stopped for gas. It was about 9:00 or 9:30 in the morning.
As a general rule, I don’t drink coffee or other caffeinated liquids, but when I’m driving long distances, I keep a Coca-Cola by my side on the conservative principle that whatever damage the caffeine might do to my eccentric heart, it will be probably be a lot less dangerous than falling asleep, crashing the car, and mangling myself and my passengers. Moreover, I’m not a consumer of candy bars, but the day before, somewhere in Minnesota, A. had treated herself to a package of M &Ms. I had wheedled a handful or so from her and I had decided to make good her loss. So when we stopped to refill the gas tank in Somewhere, South Dakota, I purchased, at one of those roadside convenience stores, a 12 oz bottle of Coke and a small plastic bag of multicolored chocolate candies, and the friendly, tough, old lady who kept the register looked at me aslant and said, affectionately, questioningly but also with a touch of scorn, "Breakfast of Champions." I was feeling defensive and while I could have responded by explaining that I don’t usually eat junky stuff, and that it wasn’t even my breakfast, I didn’t feel that I needed to apologize, so I went the other route and capitulated: "Well, I’m a vegetarian." Which made the lady smile a bit, as I had hoped, and made me feel as though we were on the same mock-serious wavelength. It was a moment of deep communication, far superior to the commonplace vacant salesperson/customer/middle-of-nowhere encounter. Feeling a kindred spirit, the lady went along with the game and both assimilated and expanded on my gambit, saying, "Yeah, I know, all organic’ –an expression that was in part friendly but which also carried a little bite, as if she detected that I was from some tofu/granola city (which, in fact, is true, even though I myself am an old-fashioned cheeseburger –as opposed to veggieburger — kind of guy). Altogether, it was one of the more satisfying conversations I’ve had in the last while. A moment of deep and profound understanding, the kind of intimate communication that we all strive for all day, every day, even out there on a two-lane in one of the "flyover" states.
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