Melissa's Place

Cultures Shock

I was kind of excited, during my trip to the Burlington Mall (the one in Ontario) for Moonlight Madness, to discover that there was a Cultures in the food court. So I sidled up and asked what was in the boccinicini panini (it looked very exotic). She said "Normally, there's boccinicini cheese and sundried tomatoes...but we're all out."
I said, "of sundried tomatoes?"
She said, "of boccinicini paninis."
I said, "Oh. Then can I have a turkey brie panini?"
And she made me one.
And she gave it to me along with my two salads and my bevvy.
I paid debit and got charged an extra 10 cent fee which she hadn't informed me about when I asked if they took debit. That pissed me off.
Then I got to my seat and took a few bites and got the distinct feeling that there was no brie on my turkey brie panini.
Not to seem too picky, but I dug through both halves and SWORE there was no brie.
I felt kind of like a stingy prude, but I went back to the counter and in my most embarrassed voice said, "Um. I don't think there's any brie on this."
And he didn't even look surprised.
He looked mostly bothered that I'd noticed.
He called to the lady, "Are we out of brie?"
And said said they were.
And he said, "We're out of brie. We just got the menu today."
And I said, "Um. Why wasn't I told when I was ordering that there wasn't any brie."
And he shrugged and said, "Would you like swiss or cheddar instead?"
Instead of asking for a discount, as I'd planned, I thought that might be not too bad either, so I said okay.
I watched him put on gloves and I sat down to wait.
He had my plate ready far too fast. Too fast to have actually warmed some cheese into the panini.
And I took it from him and looked down and realized that he had actually just plopped two halves of a cheese slice on it.

I ate it anyway. And it was exactly like you would expect a turkey panini with cold cheese slices to taste like. But the mango salad was divine.