One Saturday night a friend and I went out drinking on Brunswick St. No particular reason, just thought that something productive should be done with the weekend. After ignoring some good advice from a friendly irish bartender, we ended up at bimbo deluxe. You know, the place with the giant kewpie doll (perhaps the money spent on it could have been better put toward a paint job...). Two incredibly slow to arrive pizzas later, we left, but the artful paucity of toppings meant I was still hungry.
A few beers later, we were in Polyester Records, where I was drunkenly asserting that despite her questionable album covers, Bjork was in fact very talented. My arguments had never really won my mum over, and somehow I doubt they worked in this case either. Perhaps thankfully for the shop attendant, just then I espied through the dusty LP racks and sparkling clean windows the blue neon sign of a souvlaki shop.
We shambled accross the street and walked in, and my stomach shivered in anticipation as my nostrils caught the scent wafting from those amorphous flesh-hunks, unevenly bulging and receding like somebody's delicious first attempts at using a lathe.
About three gorges into my lamb (and CHIPS yes CHIPS IN THE SOUVLAKI)! souvlaki, I started feeling a little thirsty. My erstwhile companion confirmed that he was also, and so I meandered over to the drinks fridge, selected two merrily perspiring bottles of water, and presented them at the counter to make purchase.
Little did I suspect that this particular purveyor of all things rolled up and meat was not entirely on the up and up. Upon my placing the bottles on the counter he took one look at my beer-altered countenance and said: "Ten dollars." Something was not right! It seemed to take a full minute before the implications of what I'd just heard filtered through to the bit of my brain that does maths, until finally, I simeltaneously realised and blurted out "Um..Five dollars EACH?!" The attendant stared intently into my eyes. The tortuous pause was like being stuck in/watching a Zack Snyder film. At last he said: "Seven dollars. Three dollar fifty, each."
I accepted, shaking from my first and hopefully last encounter with the dreaded Sharp Dealing Souvlaki Merchant.
