Lex­ing­ton Mar­ket / 11 a.m. / Fri­day Octo­ber 9, 2009 / 400 West Lex­ing­ton Street

While enjoy­ing a Polock Johnny’s pol­ish sausage for break­fast with my old friend Tyrone “Mr. 49%” Craw­ley – immersed in human­ity buy­ing dough­nuts and lot­tery tick­ets and oth­ers sell­ing cig­a­rettes (two for a buck), I noticed this pho­to­copied sign taped to the counter of the hot dog stand.

Keep in mind that Polock Johnny’s car­ries vir­tu­ally none of the things for which the requests are so very necessary.

Addi­tional Items Also for Sale:

• Nap­kin to blow your nose: 5 cents
• Squirt of mus­tard for corned beef: 20 cents
• Straw for bot­tled drink: 10 cents
• But­ter for your bagel: 25 cents
• Spoon of sugar for fruit salad: 25 cents
• Hot water for Odd­les of Noo­dles: 25 cents. [Note: this is not a typo. The sign says “odd­les,” which I find espe­cially poetic for Crabtown.]
• Ketchup for onion ring: 10 cents. [Note: “ring” is sin­gu­lar, imply­ing that you may need more ketchup for addi­tional rings. Know­ing this, Polack Johnny’s charges 25 cents for three pack­ets of ketchup.]
• A bag because yours is break­ing: 25 cents.

The last one is my favorite. It acknowl­edges the despair of a shop­per with a bag that, through no fault of their own (most likely own­ing to a drink lid not affixed prop­erly) in which the bot­tom, like so many lives, is drop­ping out.

After eat­ing our “un-burgers” (locals of a cer­tain age will under­stand), Tyrone and I walked up to tables on the sec­ond floor of the mar­ket to eat Berger cook­ies and talk about the days when we can­vassed all the neigh­bor­hoods of Bal­ti­more sell­ing short sto­ries for a dol­lar a piece.

There, I wit­nessed the cherry on top of our brief visit to the world-famous market.

A sign advised that patrons should not sit on more than one plas­tic chair – the kind that can be stacked 10 and 20 high – at a time.

In front of the sign sat a secu­rity guard, three stacked chairs beneath her tired, uni­formed butt.

Seen a good one lately? Send it to Rafael Alvarez via observed@alvarezfiction.com.

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