Bazooka Joe and the Poser Posse

Wound up one table over yesterday at lunch from young people enjoying their spring break from high school (I think; I have little ability anymore to tell much more than height about people) and who were quite taken with their own extreme coolness. In fairness, I'd like to think when we were that age, we were more circumspect and behaved, but we weren't-our, or my, saving grace was that I was a dork as opposed to a thug.

I knew fun time awaited when the young man, leading the parade was asked by the extremely thrilled-to-be-making-minimum-wage-cos-I'm-worth-so-much-more-except-for-that-dope-bust on-my-record employee of the week behind the cash register to please remove his sunglasses and ball cap. There's been a crime spree in the area and, as I understand it, people wearing sunglasses and ball caps are suspects. I fully expected to see Alex Rodriguez try to beat the check and dash out to the parking lot with his bag of food where Stevie Wonder was waiting to step on it as his getaway driver.

Phew! Sorry. Must have been overcome by all the naturally occurring glutamate in the fries .Was momentarily light-headed, now I'm permanently so. Seriously, I understand the concern and I also understand when you give impotent people even the smallest and most insignificant piece of power, they'll bludgeon you like a baby seal with it. Anyway, point made and the Pranksta Gangsta doffs his cap and slips his shades and pulls his tee-shirt up to just below his nose in a startling, to me, homage to Bazooka Joe (without the eye-patch). That I'm the only person in this scarfing establishment, and possibly the hemisphere, who sees this should be more sobering than it is.

Speaking through his shirt, Bazooka Joe orders with meticulous attention to detail, your basic burger and fries lunch (I find it amusing to imagine the grill master knowing what to make of an order of tartare for a hamburger as if that would happen). The duo behind , but somehow with him, Ursula and Zena (if you're gonna go Bazooka Joe go all the way, okay?), spend as much time talking to the menu and to one another about the menu as they do to the sartorial sheriff at the register all the while holding hands, and twisting one another's arms behind their backs. The sixteen year old equivalent of 'look at me! look at me!'

All three, I suspect, have waited for their parent(s) or guardians to leave for work before rolling out of bed, finding the clothes they're wearing and lounging in this joint while hoping that term paper someone always assigns for the break actually writes itself (in these modern times it's possible). I am a simple lad who orders simple food.

I actually have mine and am seated when theirs is ready and they walk away from the counter. The sole empty table in the entire establishment is next to mine and they mark their territory by having a brief, albeit loud, food fight with french fries (damn glutamate again?). My theory on their surreptitious outfitting is probably true since I hear one of them suggest they need to hurry up and finish so she can get home because if 'my Mom sees me dressed like this, she'll go crazy.' As if that were all the reason necessary.

-bill kenny