Conversations Over Stolen Food
by Jon Cotner & Andy Fitch
Jon and Andy recorded forty-five-minute conversations for thirty straight days in New York City. Half of them took place at a Union Square health food store which they call "W.F." Other locations included MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera House, Central Park, Prospect Park and a Tribeca parking garage.
The following excerpt comes from W.F. talks. It represents a few minutes from twenty-three hours of material.
CONVERSATION #16
A: It's hard for me to complete phrases today.
J: You drank green tea without a lot to eat.
A: That typically creates soreness from my chest to my hips. Nothing's happened yet.
J: Maybe you want some of those pineapple chunks I bought ...
A: [Muffled] very nice ...
J: up for you.
A: and generous. You game me three dollars' worth of pineapple cubes.
J: I got them free. I took them along with my box and my banana to a register, and said I'd paid for the pineapple in the café upstairs...
A: The pineapple only?
J: Yeah, but they don't sell fruit here.
A: And that went O.K.?
J: It went just fine.
A: No hesitation on the clerk's part?
J: If ...if... if the cashier had looked like he or she had managerial responsibilities I was prepared to say, after swallowing several chunks in line: Oh, no thank you -- I'd like to return these.
A: Sometime we should discuss our favorite cashiers. I, there are a few I'm always happy to approach. They're real professionals. People who don't just rubber-band an egg carton, but who wrap it with paper. People who double-bag groceries knowing New Yorkers will be walking ...
J: Right. A: not throwing things into some SUV. I don't know if you have favorites.
J: I do, and many exude pride working here. One told me last week that this is a billion-dollar company.
A: I ... I remember the other day (at Chelsea W.F.) asking somebody behind a prepared-foods counter to cut a lasagna portion into two-thirds its size. I didn't want the whole thing. And I apologized for placing such a petty request. But the man informed me that this was the customer service business, and it made no sense for him to think my request was small. I then of course felt bad for suggesting ...
J: But you got the lasagna slice you'd wanted?
A: Yes.
J: Which you took back to Kristin's?
A: I ... I, yes. Yes.
The work of Jon Cotner (above) and Andy Fitch (below) has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, n+1, Paper Monument and UbuWeb. A collaborative project is forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse. They can be reached at stolen.food@gmail.com.
