Pressed Ham

Diane wanted a ham for Easter, which is odd, since she doesn’t eat meat. It is for her mom… So I went to Honey Baked Ham in Palo Alto. A store entirely devoted to a single seasonal product.

Note: looking up Honeybaked (no space) will not find you this store. That seems like a deficiency in Yahoo Yellow Pages to me.

ShaC and I got there around noon- it was weird because I lived for a few years about a block away from this place, and it always looked the same- deserted. Just like it did now. I was just hoping the place was open. In high school we joked that it was a front for the Mafia- they never seemed to do any business.

We were planning on hitting Quizno’s after we picked up the ham. Because, you know- “we love the moon.” And “they have a pepper bar.” As we entered, ShaC said, “I wonder if they have sandwiches here?”

The second we walked in, literally six salespeople greeted us. The one closest to the door asked us if we wanted samples, and invited us to try their variety of specialty mustards. There was potatoes au gratin, and tuna salad. We were the only customers in the store.

This was insane. Do these guys just live here?!? Maybe it’s like one of those Sinbad stories, where the salespeople are the damned souls of would-be customers from years past, who wandered in and now are doomed to sell specialty mustards for all of eternity!

As I ordered my ham (who buys an entire ham!!? I guess I do!), every time ShaC or I said something, a different person would answer. It was like Pokémon, or Willy Wonka or something.

GUY: Will that be all?
BRIAN: Yes… oh wait, do you have sandwiches here?
GIRL: We have ham sandwiches.
BRIAN: Shocking.
= everyone pauses for a beat =

Yes that really happened. I made some lame joke about putting a handle on the ham and hitting strangers with it, and then we drove to the bank.

At the bank I needed to make a deposit for my car payment. ShaC brought in our sandwiches to eat or maybe just consider while we waited… I deposited my check with the teller. As she did my paperwork, I noticed there were Easter baskets everywhere, filled with jelly beans and “Peeps.” And next to each basket there was a bottle of Ketchup.

BRIAN: Hey, there’s ketchup here! For our sandwiches maybe?
SHAC: *puzzled*
BRIAN: Why is there ketchup here?
TELLER: To remind you to – ketchup – on your loan payments.
= everyone is silent for a beat =

It really felt like we were all waiting for a laugh track.

The teller was about our age (late twenties) and looked like someone had very specifically instructed her to say that about the loans. She reminded me of Janeane Garofalo in The Cable Guy– something like:

MATTHEW BRODERICK: where’s the fork?
JG: Sir, just as there were no forks in medieval times, so there are no forks at Medieval Times.
MB: But there was Pepsi?
JG: Look, dude

okay maybe my teller wasn’t quite as pissy as her.

But it had that same feel to it: “Yes I am perfectly aware of how lame this is.”