My Crazy Neighborhood Pt. 3
The next stop on the crazy tour is my corner store. NOTE: I found that the NYC term for the corner store is the “deli”. New Yorkers call it the deli regardless of whether or not they make sandwiches. That’s crazy too. Anyhow, my corner store is called “Sun Valley Market”. But the locals call it “mole hair”. That’s because the guy who owns the place has a mole with a long bunch of hair growing out of it. I believe this is considered lucky, according to Chinese superstition. I also believe this is considered likely to be a cancerous growth, according to western medicine. You decide.
So, I walked in to mole hair to get a little something sweet and something to drink. They put my drink in a tiny white bag. Upon closer examination, I realized this bag was home-made by cutting and gluing together pieces of paper that have some kind of printed checklist on them. The next time I went in to mole hair, I noticed BIG stacks of home made bags, and they’re sorted according to what specific thing they’ll store. I’ll see if I can get a picture of that, because it’s REALLY crazy. Are paper bags so expensive it’s cheaper to glue together your own? Come on! Crazy.
September 12th, 2005 at 8:42 am
Crazy like a wealthy merchant! I lived across the street from mole-hair for almost 3 years, and aside from the cheap, occasionally rancid food, the main thing I noticed were the extremely fancy cars that all of MH’s offspring were driving. I really miss the cheerful “Hey, Buddy!” I’d hear everytime I walked in.