Salad Days

I'm full of beans. Not literally. I'm actually full of salad. From the salad bar. Salad bar salad.

It's excellent salad. The best salad bar salad bar none.

(It's actually not that great. But I wanted to do that joke.)

I was once on Ilkley Moor, and ate the best salad bar salad bar none baht 'at.

(I've never been to Ilkley Moor)

Still, salad, eh? Leaves. Salad leaves. And - cous cous. Remember salad?

There's no official guidelines for how to tackle the salad bar. It means that there is often confusion. You might meet a fellow salad patron travelling in the opposite direction. And there's an awkward moment where you're not sure whether to let them go for the cucumbers or not.

I usually bow majestically and then, when they've taken hold of the 'cumber spoon, I slap the plate out of their hands, smash my head through the sneeze-guard, grab a handful of coleslaw and then sprint into the night (which is tricky, as it's always lunchtime).

At least I have a system. The alternative is imposing a strict directional imperative. Clockwise or anti-clockwise. Then we'd all know where we were.

Except - and this possibility weighs on my brain like a drugged rabbit - it could lead to terrible regret. You walk around the salad bar (let's say clockwise), you get your lettuce, and your sweetcorn, and your potato salad, and then you see another salad. Sweet potato.

Nah, you think (you think nah). I don't need to double up on the potatoes. And so you move on. People shuffle around, systematically, a big conveyor belt of sensible eaters.

But then you think: wait. I like sweet potato. I haven't had sweet potato since that glorious autumn I spent in Maine. With Pam. Oh Pam, how I miss thee!

I remember the auburn evenings, playing duets on your old piano, eating bowl after bowl of sweet potato. All manner of dressings, all manner of consistencies. Sweet potato. As sweet as our love. As sweet as your smile, Pam - my darling Pam.

The sweet potato fills up my soul. The tuber of our love. Oh, if only you hadn't taken that job as an accountant in Guam! If only our potato-based affection had been able to outweigh the desire for change!

I miss your sweet potato smile, Pam. Sometimes I put sugar on normal potatoes just so I can be transported, for one brief moment, back to Maine and the piano. Of course, the sugared potatoes in no way resemble sweet potatoes. A stupid idea. I don't know why I did it. A lovesick fool's mistake.

And, at the salad bar, you think this, and you regret your haste. You want to go back. You want a mouthful of carb-rich nostalgia. You want to return to the sweet potato (in more ways than one).

But you can't.

Everyone is going clockwise. You can't go back. You can't turn back the clock.

And the people tick forward mechanically. And the sweet potato fades out of site, lost, with the inevitable transience of a Baudelaire's stranger on the streets of Paris. You seem to see the face of Pam in the condensation on the glass, but are nudged out of your reverie by someone after the thousand island dressing.

So, that's the main disadvantage of the directional imperative system.

Probably best to just allow people free reign, and replace the sneeze-guard as and when.