A mildly confused moment. The man had wanted two plain bagels, one with butter and one with cream cheese, and I said okay, but then saw there was only one plain bagel left and told him as much and he said, okay, make it a sesame, and he anticipated my next question and so he also said — and have the butter on the plain and the cream cheese on the sesame.
The man was one of those who said Okay a lot as a way of separating the various ideas he intended to express. Okay as a kind of punctuation. I want a cafe au lait okay, make it a small one okay, then a lemonade, okay make that a medium, okay. And I think that’ll be it.… was the way he talked.
Let me see if I have this I said, the four factors of this order suddenly bobbling in my head, you want the cream cheese on the plain and the butter on the sesame? Yes, the man said obligingly (because I had said that in the tone of a person just confirming what was already known). No, the man beside him said. No, that’s right, the man now realized, I want the plain with butter and the sesame with cream cheese — right I then said, having already known what I’d said must be wrong– and that was the extent of this “mild confusion.”
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 