When you're not from NYC, there's a certain insecurity that never quite goes away. Like, “should I already know how to do this?” That was me, two years into living here, feeling semi-local at my bodega next door, but still quietly preparing in my head just to be sure.
It was late. Post Model/Actriz concert. Starving. I’m with a friend and we stop at my spot for a chopped cheese, my small badge of assimilation. There’s a new guy working the grill, and he’s mid-smoothie prep, not acknowledging me at all. I’m not sure if he’s on break or just… busy? So I hover. Wait. Do the classic uncertain smile-stance.
Eventually, I order. Minimal response. He starts cooking.
Then, this older woman walks in and gently asks me what to order here. Me and my friend agree, chopped cheese, no doubt. She nods, curious. We chat a little. All is well.
But then, after a few quiet minutes, she yells over from the counter asks, “How do you order it?”
Instead of just saying “chopped cheese on a hero, everything, pickles” like a normal person I went into an exacting breakdown of how to order food and navigate the mysterious rhythms of bodega etiquette:n “Well, first, you wait. He’ll make eye contact when he’s ready. Then you state your intention clearly. Don’t rush him. Then say: chopped cheese, everything, pickles. Hero roll. But again, you have to wait for the signal.”
I finish explaining and my friend goes: “I don’t think that’s what she meant.”
She just wanted to know what I ordered, of course not the entire rite-of-passage for ordering food.
We all laughed. She got her order. I got my sandwich. As a non-American it’s hilarious to me that I turned a simple question about what I ordered into a full-on lesson in bodega anthropology. Glad I was still helpful on her quest for the first chopped cheese.
