Mitteleuropean pricing
I’m just back from Otto’s Hungarian deli. I’ve been going there for years and years because Otto carries a spicy beer sausage that I enjoy and haven’t found elsewhere.
Otto is an elderly accordionist from the old country for whom pricing remains a matter of speculation. Today, for example, a $4.99 sausage and two 99¢ ice creams for my kids cost eleven bucks. I asked Otto for a breakdown on this charge, which led him to the subtotal of “about seven-fifty, and the rest is tax.” I know that California is in fiscal crisis, but I don’t believe state sales tax has gone up to 58%. Unlike me, I just paid it. That’s because last time I was there, Otto undercharged me by about five bucks and I couldn’t talk him out of it. I say “undercharged,” but that’s not accurate, because clearly pricing isn’t set. Perhaps pricing depends upon the level of admiration you express for polka music, unpronounceable beers, and packaged delicacies with no vowels on the label. Today he was screening a broadcast of Hungary’s national holiday — “Like Fourth of Ju-ly,” he said — and I complimented the aural beauty of the chorus and the imposing leadership of what I take to be Hungary’s present leader, a neatly dressed man in his 60’s whom the camera kept cutting away to, someone who serenely expressed his appreciation for all those young voices and the fittingness of whatever it is they were singing. Despite my praise, the sausage and the two ice creams were still eleven bucks. But it’s my belief that over the past 10 years, Otto’s pricing has balanced out. Once I stopped and got sandwiches for my business partner and myself and almost needed a bank loan. The next time it seemed he was paying me to take them. Whatever it actually costs, it’s always tasty.
I also find Otto himself to be interesting. In a Joyce Carol Oates story recently in the New Yorker (a story I stopped reading halfway through because life is short and it was dull) she describes a certain foreign-born type as “trying too hard.” I think that’s Otto, with his bad wisecracks that I can’t quite decipher and his countertop gimmicks, like the fake money and the singing plastic mechanical bird and the stacks and piles of dusty Hungarian tchotchkes, offset by a getup of shorts with suspenders, black dress shoes and white socks. There is something charming about all this, and there is something very friendly and personable about him that you find all too rarely. Little does Otto know his level of influence. When I was directing a play called “Grandma’s Christmas Goulash” by David Vegh (part of a show I conceived called “Hate for the Holidays” — just so you see where I’m coming from), the actor Richard Ruyle asked me where I thought he could pick up a Hungarian accent. I sent him do some business with Otto. I have no idea what he paid.
By the way, you’ll note that Otto will ship worldwide. He carries a fascinating array of meats, desserts, and, well, rubbing alcohol. (Perhaps the Hungarian kind burns deeper. Who knows?) Best to ignore the posted prices.