The Lost Treasure of Yinzer™

	Let’s go to a mid-2018 morning: I’d staged my music gear by the front door the night before but forgot to switch planned tour laundry from the washer to the dryer or redo the travel braids I still dragged around then. Something else was on my mind besides the two-show, four-date boomerang of drive-day, show, show, drive-day ahead. 

I didn’t need much for the junket & my wardrobe isn’t very diverse anyway, so I just grabbed what I could & threw it all in the minivan for the first leg to a reserved motel in NW PA. 

First stop on the way, though: an Upstate NY antique mall along the rural Southern Tier to hopefully recover a painting I’d hastily passed up nearly a year before. 

I headed west, fixated.

said-enigma

	That previous 2017 monthlong trip had also begun with a downtime stop at the mall: a random pullover then, just to snoop around — my first there where I initially stumbled onto the painting after being greeted at the entrance to “take a look around” & began the bric-a-brac maze.

I paused at first passing, kept going, then circled back for second, third & fourth thoughts. I was drawn to the image, but it was priced more than whatever it was that I considered its worth — I’m still not sure why I didn’t simply give in. It wasn’t much, just a little too — you know: that weird max-amount we make up depending on how fluid we are at that impulsive moment. 

Instead, I just took a phone pic & continued on. 

Over the course of that trip, though, I strangely kept coming across other anonymous paintings of the same ilk: eyeless portraits — coincidentally spread across the map in various thrifting pullovers — each time, again abandoned because of cost or other later-regretted reasons, but not before a snapshot of each to document the treasures. 

An evidential pattern of lost opportunities was forming.

By the end of that tour, with a conjured physical collection of them all captured on my phone & mind, I was now fully possessed by the original Upstate theme piece & vowed to roll back through next-chance to pick it up. There was no hurry, though, I thought — I mean, who else would want it? In my delusional view, it was already mine anyway. I just needed to go back & cash in my claim. 

	Fast-forwarding now to the ’18 two-show turnaround: that departure began clear-skied with an in-town top-off at $2.89/gal, hoping to push it to the PA state line where it usually gets cheaper going west. 

Cutting across Upstate, the Southern Tier traffic was casually distanced as it passed sparse industry & houses occasionally bunched in communes of unknown routines but for trees stretching their bare veins over a carpet of their compressed dead. Some still held onto remote growth that just wouldn't let go. Then, a sprinkle of rain as a spun radio dial settled into an intermittent static of nowhere to the rhythm of wipers.

After five hours, I took a ramp & cruised the almost-familiar Main Street of empty storefronts. I found the antique mall, went in again to where I was sure I’d seen the painting, searched booth to booth, but it wasn’t there anymore — not just the painting, but the entire stall — nothing but a vacant space between other curations.  

I ceded to just move on without the painting & asked for directions west. A finger pointed to a vague direction & I drove out of town under a drying sky. 

Sidetracked by my loss, I overlooked the state line goal & gassed up again at $2.69/gal for an empty-handed last hour-&-a-half, my driven mind still on the painting. 

“over yonder . . . “

	The lodging was across from a casino, just past a sign that advertised “Beer & Wieners.” In the motel parking lot, a young woman tied back blonde dreads next to a van with a Deadhead sticker, then pulled out a bawling baby & stroked its bald skull. I registered, took a few essentials into the room & promptly went back out with a fresh objective.

The chalkboard dog menu had various specific options — from plain to multiculti-style to a breakfast variation & other hybrids, most with names misspelled with mischief verging on offensive, but faintly amusing to say in your head. 

There was no mention of french fries or other sides as if the sausage titles had left the author giggled-out & speechless. 

I decided on what the menu titled The Yinzer™: a split andouille on a wide bun over stadium mustard, kraut & melted cheese with a stratum of pierogi, sour cream & fried onions. I figured I’d order to-go & pick up some fries or chips somewhere else on the way back to the motel. 

I stood in a line next to a row of beer fridges with a taped sign that read Do Not Open Beers which didn’t concern me because I had prepped a travel-toiletry bottle of vodka, now reclining freely in a bag of ice in the motel bathroom sink awaiting a dinner toast of remembrance to the painting. 

The fridge doors opened & closed with a cold hiss as customers would strangle out a coupla bottles & teeter in line as if they had lower back trouble or another localized problem. They’d look past the others ahead of them, then sadly down at their clutched beers, watching the cashier uncap bottles at the register with an opener attached to a small chain after they were purchased. 

I saw a couple sitting at the counter with finished plates look at the line & lightly debate whether or not to grab another two beers, then relax into nodded agreement as though they both knew all along Of course we should get two more! What were we thinking?!

When my time came to order, the cashier said “It’ll be an hour” — sweetly but also slightly defensive with worn sockets that blinked Yes, an hour-wait for a hot dog sounds strange, but it’s true & here we both are, so let’s try to get through this. 

next?

I looked across the small room to a person behind another counter spinning calmly but quickly from grill to prep to grill, constructing various dog concoctions — looking down, not interacting with anyone else, just concentrating silently. I looked back at the cashier’s face — the restrained pain waiting for my response. 

The phrase “an hour” kept misfiring within. 

I yielded to the situation & released all involved with “Yes. An hour? Okay. Do you need my name or something, or just check back in?” The cashier looked at my unravelling hair & then directly in my eyes & said from a mouth with one side up to ease & the other down to warn, “No, I’ll remember you.” 

I paid & tried to come up with a plan. I couldn’t drink beer for an hour while waiting, so I left & went to a gas station to get some seltzer. They also had plastic lime-shaped juicers, which I picked up. I noticed they made-to-order french fries as well (M•T•O® Fryz) but held off on the urge & went back to my room. 

Looking at the bedside alarm clock with forty minutes still left, I turned on the news to nothing-new reported in self-entertained smirks with authoritative delivery. 

At thirty minutes, I turned off the TV & considered the vodka in its come-hither pose, leaning back & beading, then decided to just go back early for The Yinzer™. 

the hardest part

	As I was pulling out of the lot, five people piled out of an SUV with a Pipefitters Local decal on the back. The scene looked multi-generational with some clutching pillows. They pulled out an ice chest & a toolbox. I wondered if it was family night out or if maybe there was an all-ages pipefitters blowout at the casino. 

Returning to the dog place, I went to the fridge, grabbed a beer & had just gotten in line to have it opened when the cashier saw me & waved me up with “Just finished your order.” 

I put the bottle back, cut to the front & accepted the handed bag without looking inside, wondering about condiments but not wanting to be a further bother & ask. 

I noticed there were plastic yellow & red squeeze bottles on a ledge near the grill. An inside voice asked Are they the cook’s or for the customers? I crossed the room to the other counter, pulled out the foam to-go container & released the hood showing the dog in open-face layout with a drizzled design of sour cream laced under a coif of fried onions — in my judgment, perfectly created with artistic precision. 

Even so, with the cook safely turned away from me, I went ahead & reached for one of the yellow bottles & squeezed it over the motif. Nothing came out. I squeezed again, harder, to nothing but a wet wheeze. I loosened the top & almost tried again, but my imagination played a scene of an exploding spout & mustard spitting like a yellow sprinkler across the cook & the counter couple.

(That imagined scene wasn’t cooked up out of thin air. It had actually happened once when I was in high school in Gridley Calif at a burger place called The Trough. About eight of us around a lunchtime table, I had loosened a squeezer lid & went-for-it sending a ripple spray to surrounding shirts & blouses allowing all to return to class marked with a chest-level splatter.)

Without looking up or turning towards me, continuing to arrange & craft, the cook said flatly, “It comes with everything described on the menu.” 

I froze, then put the squeezer down with “Yes. It looks good. Thank you,” slipped the box back into the bag & followed the beer line outside as if caught & expelled.

I drove back to the gas station. The Fryz were M•T•O® in just seconds. The cashier asked if I wanted a dipping sauce. I hesitated, then saw their smile & answered “Thanks. I'm a dipper.” They dropped in a few. 

Sensitive deference to disoriented strangers is such a gift.

Back in my room, I slowly tore the dog bag open in the middle like a pulled stage curtain & opened the foam container lid, presenting its beautiful display. I completed the sublime moment with a plastic squeeze pairing & sipped in review of my overall decision-making — a lifetime, really, of behaviors: seeking what wasn’t offered — mustard, another chance or otherwise — or turning away what was — all based on unfounded expectations. 

I now recognized myself as an insurgent, exploring & extracting from settled turf of a seemingly incomplete world, yet, as seen fit by the cook, the cashier’s expression & the obedient drunks in line — only realized while alone, answering a damaging line of questioning from a vodka sinktail & feeling — from the buzzing afterglow of ground pork grilled casing crunch, fingernails dyed adequately yellow & a medley of lap crumbs — a revelation of the lost art of basic acceptance: I will never know anything except the moment. 

I was awakened briefly in the middle of the night to the hallway sound of someone bumping against a wall, metallic clangs, & then a passing chorus of laughter.   

The next morning, I dressed in a similar getup as the day before & went to the lobby to check out. The deadhead sat at a table, dreads loose. She looked tired. The baby was still crying. 

	There was a bewitching fog. Rain began to fall again. I turned on the wipers & saw the gas station sign for $2.49/gal as I got on the turnpike, but it was too late now, firmly rooted into the impetuous universe.

PS — For more research, try: 
Hot Dog & Sausage Council
&
National Mustard Museum

. . . you can keep traveling along with Weekend . . .