
At about midday I grew a little hungry, so I popped into the meal room under the grandstand. The lady in front of me studied the board for a long time. I'd already decided I wanted a steak and onion sandwich and the smell of cooking was making me ravenous. The queue behind me grew as the lady continued to to read. Finally she asked "What's a kebab?"
"Chicken bits onna skewer," said the bloke behind the counter. "Three dollars."
"That don't sound very nice."
"Everybody loves them! Or how about a sausage sandwich?" said Wellington's version of Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler as he tried to hurry her up. "What about Eggan Bacon onna roll?"
"Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh... dunno," said the lady. My stomach roared in frustation. "Um... I think... Yeah, steak and ungion sammige."
CMOT seemed to suffer some sort of internal struggle, and lost. He had to up-sell. "How about a drink?"
The lady studied the board -- a board that listed just Tea, Coffee, Cappuccino, Coke, Solo -- for EVER, then she asked "What's cap-pack-eye-no?"
"Cappuccino," said CMOT Dibbler.
"There's no 'haitch' in it!" observed the lady. I considered strangling her with my empty and hunger-ravaged intestines for a) making me wait for lunch, b) killing the English Language, and c) General Ignorance.
"It's Italian," said CMOT.
"Oh, I don't want that foreign muck. Gimme a cup of tea." She took several years to pay for her lunch; paid not in notes or $1 or $2 coins like a normal person, but in small pieces of silver schrappnel the largest of which were four 50c coins.
I know this BECAUSE I COUNTED THEM, all the while thinking "please hurry up and go away," and wishing for some sort of trapdoor to open up under her. I finally bought my own steak and onion sandwich, and washed it down with a cup of tea, but it barely touched the sides on the way down and left me with a general feeling of having eaten but still hungry. It took some time for the feeding frenzy hormones to kick in and tell my brain I'd eaten, and until then I had to resist the temptation of buying a sausage sandwhich.
And I did resist! I Am Good!