The French fry Thief

Separated at birth?

Tony Blair had entered the building.

For a week prior to the event, I kept thinking I’d be doing security for Tony Bennett, but no: the two are entirely different entities. The former was a diplomat with international connections, those connections continuing into his private life despite his having buddied up next to the poison Bush. The latter sings. Both have curly grey hair, which may have been what was throwing me off.

Blair’s topic for the evening: The World’s Faiths Need to Get Along … (not as in “little doggy”) didn’t really require any more thought than reading the title. The common sense concept that humans need to stop killing each other simply because their religious forefathers came up with a different name for “god” should be a topic digestible by even the most uneducated lout.

Regardless, I was hoping to get posted inside, so I could at least hear the topic and form my own opinion—particularly for international fodder for this here blog. The opening speaker was a renowned professor from UCSB, one who when I went to school there was in the process of writing a book that included his firsthand interviews with the world’s number one terrorists: including bin laden himself.

Instead, I was posted to the parking lot.

I could hear over the COM, (which consisted of a radio and a macaroni in my ear) that my boys on the inside were already bored, and only the professor had spoken. The fact that they couldn’t stomach this genius’ speech made me angry and sad. Here I was counting cars and making sure random wanderers didn’t go by the building that was secure to the point of absurdity. The State Department, Scotland Yard, two private security firms and about 30 cops had been assigned to make sure Blair was one protected dude.

Lord knows that some heavy shit goes down in Santa Barbara.

Just then a lad in his early 20s came running out of Vons toward a side-parking area between the two buildings. He weaved between several cars, tossed a small paper bag into my walkway about 20 yards down, then proceeded to hop over the five foot wall.

“Hey,” I growled in my best impersonation of a security guard thoroughly concerned that the bag might have a smoke bomb or some nefarious device. “You have to go around. Walkway’s closed.”

By the time I sauntered up to the area, noting that the three security guards in the side room had done nothing but adjust their stance so concerned were they, the lad had somehow disappeared around the corner. I walked back to the bag.

Its contents were warm. It was freshly creased. It was sealed with an official Von’s sticker proclaiming Von’s Potato Wedges: $1.65. They were warm, almost hot.

Damn, I thought, these are straight from the deli.

I verified that the bag was undamaged. There was no way the contents had been tainted except for the shock of being tossed and dropped over the wall. I walked back to my post, knowing that if the kid had been desperate enough to steal less than two dollars in food, he’d be coming back looking for his loot. I had every intention of giving the fries back, I was merely going to tax him a few for the trouble.

Five minutes later he came walking by.

“Lose any French fries?”

“Whuh?—No. Nuh-uh.”

“You sure? Nice hot bag of tasty potato wedges?”

“No.”

I could see him eyeballing the bag. I was waiting for him to make a grab for it. At the same time I was marveling at either his hunger-driven ballsiness or his flagrant ignorance of the horde of motorcycle cops 100 yards to his right. He wandered off, and I was again impressed with his ability to disappear. He walked behind a mini motor home and I never saw him again.

The fries were mine. Quite tasty. Not quite as fulfilling as listening to a historically significant international character interviewed by a renowned scholar, but perhaps just as salty as a British Schmoopy Doop might sound.