The Ozian and the Mundane

Yesterday, while my wife was off living it up in New York, I was having annoying experiences shopping for food. I was going to have lunch at Subway, seeing as how they have that $5 foot-long sub deal. The lady at the counter started making it for me, and then said they only had American and Swiss cheese (I had wanted provolone). So I left, and I feel kind of bad about it, but I probably shouldn't. She was wearing gloves and hadn't heated anything yet, so the ingredients could have been reused, although they probably weren't. Isn't being out of a key ingredient something I should know before the sandwich-making begins? I don't know. I'm often critical of people for things like that, but then when I have time to think about them, I realize that I most likely wouldn't act much better in those situations. Anyway, I got a sub at Wawa instead, which was cheaper anyway, although it was only a ten-inch instead of a foot-long.

Later on, at the grocery store, I took a number for the deli counter and ended up missing when they called it, so I had to take another one. I ended up waiting for a guy who was buying at least ten different items, and a lady who insisted that they hadn't given her her entire order. This wouldn't have been a big deal if there had been more employees working there, but there were only two. I'm not really sure why, but I always feel a little weird with only getting one item at the deli. I've learned from experience that, if I buy more than a pound of ham at a time, part of it usually ends up getting slimy. And I'm not a big fan of most other deli meats. Salami and pastrami are all right, but I don't care for deli turkey. And while I'll buy provolone cheese there occasionally, I don't like their cheddar. I also somehow misplaced my cart. I'm not sure whether someone took it when I left it alone or what, but I know I couldn't find it and had to get another one.

I've also finished reading the late Gilbert Sprague's The Nome King's Shadow in Oz, a short little book about Roquat's shadow coming to Oz to seek revenge after the events of Ozma of Oz. Yeah, it's kind of silly even by Ozzy standards, and there really wasn't that much of a plot, but it was pretty fun. The author did a decent job at using a live shadow as a character, and I liked the pun-filled exchange between Billina and Professor Wogglebug. I do think that a fair number of the Oz books that Books of Wonder put out under their Emerald City Press imprint seem to be geared toward younger audiences than the original Oz series, but they DID also release The Giant Garden of Oz and The Silver Sorceress of Oz. Regardless, I wish they'd put out some more books, but I guess they didn't sell all that well. That's one of the hazards of being obsessed with a relatively obscure fantasy series, I suppose.

So, if there's any lesson to be learned from this post, I guess it's that I'm obnoxiously picky when it comes to cheese.