Kids These Days...

I don’t usually talk between 12 p.m. and 12:30 p.m. on Sundays. This isn’t, I hope, some sort of cod philosophical practice; I’m not trying to clear my mind (you can never really do that); I’m eating a chicken cutlet sandwich. Barbeque sauce, bacon, and melted mozzarella is how I take them, a little honey mustard if I’m feeling it.

I do this partly because it reminds me of home—my local deli calls this the Brano Bomber—and partly because, when combined with a glass bottle of Yoo-hoo it forms one of the all-time great hangover cure tag-teams. But mostly I do this just because I like sandwiches, and for the continuity.

My mom is a big people-watcher and I think that I inherited a little bit of it from her. But where she’s interested in what people are saying to each other, I pay more attention to the way people navigate and—because I’m in almost the same spot every week—to patterns. There’s a guy with a blue bicycle who has crashed on the same spot three times this year, an old lady who crosses Brattle Street at needlessly perfect right angles, and tour groups with matching beverages. All this against the eternal background flow of customers into their footwear-appropriate shops (Nike SB Dunks to American Apparel, loafers to Burdick).

A pattern emerged in the late ’00s where everybody stopped waking up before 1 p.m. on Sunday. This isn’t at all a terrible idea, it gets you up just in time for the early football games and most places (except McDonald’s) are still serving breakfast. McDonald’s breakfast ends at 11 o’clock exactly, there is no getting around this, the menus are on a timer, unless you get a key to the manager’s office the night before and change the settings, or push the clocks back manually, still though the employees probably have watches. You can’t really blame people for waking up late on Sundays really; the only thing they’re missing is The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross and there can be only so many happy little trees.

Not really sure why, but I’m rallying against all of these patterns with a pattern of my own. Last week, however, my pattern was interrupted. I had the normal sandwich, this time with a Baja Blast Mountain Dew® and I sat down on my bench. I was halfway through my sandwich, on the bench with my headphones on, when a kid somewhere between 5-11 years old sat next to me. I can’t really tell how old kids are because, other than a summer camp counselor gig after senior year, I try to stay away from them. They punch and shit. This kid was wearing a Mets hat though so I figured he was a normal and reasonable person, I just kept eating. I watched as he similarly unwrapped a big sandwich and started in on it. I sort of wondered where the kid’s parents were, but I decided to leave it be and continue on with the sandwich and the enjoying my music. Then I got a tap on the arm, and I took off my headphones.

“Wanna trade?” the kid said, and presented to me a half sandwich that I was immediately drawn to. An unsteady handful of crisp wax paper edges, this kid was holding a beast. Turkey, capicola (say ‘gabagool’), roast beef, tomato, lettuce, and what smelled like horseradish dressing all warmed on a perfect looking half hero. I took a look at my sandwich, the old stand-by, and I briefly weighed my options. Then the responsible, mature thought occurred to me; I couldn’t trade food with this little kid. He might be allergic (these days it seems like every kid is), contagious, or I might get him sick.

“Nah man,” I say with my deep man voice, “I admire your style but I can’t be doing shit...I mean stuff like that.” With a crumpling flourish, he withdrew his sandwich. The next part of this story is completely true and wholly unexpected. Putting his little-person hand on my iPod (which was on the bench next to me), he said “I’m gonna chuck this shit.” “No you’re not,” I said, only half-seriously because I couldn’t possibly anticipate what was going to happen next.

He wound up and I froze; I couldn’t forcibly stop this little kid I didn’t know, and I still half thought that he was faking. Some gasping syllable came out of my mouth just as I felt a tug on the still-connected headphones around my neck, and the release as momentum freed the iPod. It hit a metal trash can straight on, then skidded off into the street making with a sound like a row of people dropping their cell phones one after the other. None of this happened in slo-motion.

I ran down the street and the kid ran away, fast. I’m pretty sure I heard him say “I can’t believe I just did that,” but that might have just been me projecting my thoughts. Just before I reached my iPod, a heavily tattooed guy with a ZZ-Top beard picked it off the floor and gave it a look. “It’s okay man...I secretly listen to Norah Jones too.”

Never challenge a 5-11 year old without parental supervision.

—Ross S. Weinstein ’10 is a Government concentrator in Eliot House. Susan Sarandon.