By Martin H. Levinson
When I entered the Woke Street Café—a hip new restaurant that caters to the woke, those wanting to be woke, and individuals curious about the idea of “wokeness”—I tried to check my privilege at the door but was told unless I agreed to campaign for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren they wouldn’t accept it. I thought that fair so I agreed to stuff envelopes and make phone calls for both candidates and was handed a tag by the restaurant’s status attendant. I then followed the host to my table, which was adorned with a plain, inoffensive tablecloth upon which sat politically correct cutlery, a recycled paper napkin, a biodegradable paper straw, a list of grievances from people who have reached adulthood in the second decade of the 21st century, and a pamphlet on the merits of socialism.
A waitperson brought me a menu and asked if I’d care to order a drink. I said I would and requested he recommend something. He said the Cuba Libre was a beverage he was partial to as he hailed from Cuba and was a proud Hispanic who had married a Latina who was born in Brazil so she could not be called a Hispanic because, according to the US census bureau, people of Portuguese or Brazilian descent are not considered Hispanic but she didn’t care because the majority of Hispanic and Latino Americans prefer to identify with their families’ country of origin. I took his advice and ordered the Cuba Libre.
While sipping my libation I looked over some of the more interesting choices on the menu such as “cisgender salad” (a salad whose gender identity was assigned when it was made in the kitchen), “biologically-challenged potatoes” (tubers grown in harsh conditions on the steppes of Russia), and “gluten-free-range vegan salmon” (salmon that are raised on vegetables without gluten in cage-free, filtered water spawning grounds). In the end I decided to go with a simple inclusive pasta that contained ziti, spaghetti, rigatoni, linguini, fettuccini, cannelloni, macaroni, rotini, and penne served with a light sprinkling of garlic and olive oil and a disclaimer saying that the restaurant does not discount the nutritional importance of red and white sauce nor the inherent value of pappardelle, orecchiette, tagliatelle, and all other marginalized pasta categories. To accompany my entrée I ordered a non-binary vegetable/fruit dish that had in it cucumbers, pumpkins, tomatoes, and ten other “vegetables” that, botanically speaking, could be considered fruits. For dessert I went with a BDS hot fudge sundae that featured chocolate sauce from the West Bank and nuts and rockets from Gaza.
While eating my meal I received a text from an LGBTQIAGNC neighbor who wanted to know if I was confused when they referred to themselves as “they,” which everyone in the wokerati knows is a singular, non-binary, gender-neutral, reflexive pronoun used by individuals who are sensitive to the way our culture limits gender identification. I replied I was sure I would eventually get used to the notion that “they” was an emerging pronoun that referred to a person who rejected the traditional binary “he” or “she.” They texted back they were happy I felt that way. And I was happy they were happy and I felt even happier when they said they had recently met a very nice person whose individual gender was unknown and irrelevant and that they and they were taking themselves to Starbucks for a couple of double espressos and some indigenous non-gendered pound cake.
After I finished my dinner I signaled for a check. When I received it I noticed an overcharge on the bill and told that to the waitron who rather than being apologetic for the error said, “OK, boomer, I’ll get you another check.” When I said his reference to my generational cohort seemed somewhat dismissive he replied, “Baby boomers have destroyed the economy and don’t care about the future so it’s hard not to feel a tad micro-aggressive when I serve an older, privileged person like yourself.”
Not wanting to get into an argument with my server, or be perceived as waiterphobic or systemically oppressive, I said to the soup juggler that he should forget about giving me another check and that I would simply pay the amount on the bill I received. I also said he might want to consider taking a course on customer relations. Sadly, my gestures of good will were not taken by the tray trotter in the spirit which I had intended and I was called a fat shaming, victim blaming, misogynistic, socially misaligned, selectively perceptive, charm free, negative attention getting, dysfunctional earth child, to which I responded, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can really harm me, if you are woke and not a joke you’ll find a safe space for me.” The safe space turned out to be my car, which I drove home in feeling a bit shaken but fully awakened to the idea that there is a lot about the younger generation and its lingo that I don’t understand and that, in the interests of being less horizontally challenged and more sustainably fit, I probably should have just had the cisgender salad and not ordered dessert.