"Salt and sauce" I replied in a fluster.
The man behind the counter froze. Maybe the whole chip shop froze. There were a good few people in it, despite what the photo suggests, and as is always the case with hungry humans waiting for their food they were for the most part lost in the their own little worlds staring into nothingness. The left side is fried food- chips, pizza (yes- fried pizza), burgers, sausage, white pudding, black pudding, haggis, fish, etc. The right side is ice cream. Strange combination. And through the back of the right side is are tables- I think. But when I went in there were a few people or maybe it was the narrowness or paranoia. This seemed to wake them up as heads turned in my direction. A sense of deja vu came over me. For the second time in a few days I was getting food and had clumsily made myself the centre of attraction when all I wanted to do was skulk silently in the shadows.
The man behind the counter looked at the bottle of salt in his hand then the bottle of vinegar in his other hand and finally at me. I repeated his actions in reverse. How many times we did this I don't know but it felt like a few and every time I looked at him he looked stunned and speechless. It wasn't the response he was expecting and as a result didn't know how to react. It took time but suddenly I realised my error.
"I mean salt and vinegar" I quickly blurted out.
This brought a smile to his face and a wave of relief as he was able to get on to the job of sprinkling the chips I had ordered. It is a practice he constantly does without thinking like an automaton and by making him think I had stopped in in his tracks. Quite possibly he would have had a meltdown if I hadn't recovered my whits and I'd have had to run out the shop to tiny explosions and wires being catapulted in all directions. But all was OK.
"I don't get out much" I tried to explain.
He didn't hear me. He was now in his own little world smiling to himself and no doubt imagining telling friends later about the strange guy: "I had vinegar in one hand, salt in the other and he asks for salt and sauce" he tells the others shaking his head with a smile as he does so. Such is the monotony of repetitive occupation that it is the littlest changes that have the biggest effect.
It is a strange phenomena in Scotland. I was born in the West where I lived briefly then brought up in the East but now found myself back in the West again. Chip shops in the West provide salt and vinegar whereas in the East they provide salt and sauce- either tomato or brown (not like you get from the supermarket but a watered down version). How that originated I don't know but that is the way it is. Like those other zombies I'd placed my order of two bags of chips and was caught short when asked a further question. I wasn't expected that. I thought it was ask, pay, get and walk. It has been so long since I was in a chip shop I had missed out a step and been rattled by it so much that I blurted out memories of youth.
It was though a good night and a nice change. I decided to go for a drive last night and the family came along as usually. Hunger took me to a chip shop a couple of miles out. It was all about something new. We passed lots of them along the way but I wanted to go to this one and I never told my wife until we got there. I was planning on having something more but seem to have lost a five pound note somewhere so had to settle for chips. With the kids in the car outside the shop my wife and I went in where I was to do the ordering and paying. We then drove back with our prize and the kids had their 'supper' of Chippy Chips. It was nice- daddy driving and daddy buying the chips.
The unusual thing about this place is that although it is a chip shop it is more renowned locally for it's ice cream. Had it been a warm summer night I would have bought the girls one of those but its far from that at the moment. Maybe one night though as a treat. And as I got ready to tuck in to my chips as home I noticed a boast on the box which you can see if you enlarge the image:
'World Record Holders: 12406 fish suppers in 1 day'
All those fish and chips in one day and I'll bet no one asked for sauce. The man behind the counter may have been thinking back as he smiled.
