"Just shove it in there... oweee." "You can't shove just anything into certain orifices." "Don't point that thing at me." "Ow, you banged that thing into my tooth, motherfucker."
It is 3 a.m. when my female companions and I pile into a cab. Our destination: the Melrose Diner. We are looking for Philly. (Janice, an albino frat boy, told us about the Melrose diner . (S)he promised us that Melrose would provide the ever-elusive mindfuck we couldn't find at Penn. "Try the Philadelphia scrapple," warned/advised Janice as she fish-eyed me, "It's pork.") After a few pulls on the hookah, we took off.
Evidently, our cabbie had just come from Wizzards (now complete with a buffet) where he had picked up two women that he could only quietly describe as "lesbians."
"The first thing they did man, was close the shield then they just went wild... I almost got in an accident from looking too hard in the rear view mirror... I was about to join them... Just think what you're sitting in, Bro," the cabbie says over his shoulder to me.
"You ever see anything like that before?" I ask with a wide-eyed naivet‚.
"Just on a tape," he replies.
I think he has a paralyzing case of blue balls.
And then we have breakfast...
The diner itself is an immersion into non-Penn Philadelphia. It is packed with a combination of 20-something club detritus and old men either going to or coming from work. It is, more or less, like Billybobs three years ago: a bunch of young people in tight clothes, smoking cigarettes over a greasy plate.
The moment I get situated in my dirty swivel chair, I want to make fun of the place. The bad art depicting scenes from Philadelphia (including an oil refinery complete with smokestacks belching some kind of horrible toxic smoke), the big helmet hair of the waitresses, their even bigger glasses, the fact that a guy next to me is using a business card for a toothpick, and the thick Philadelphia accents you don't hear at Penn; everything seems ripe for ridicule.
Just as I am about to switch into cynical Penn-mode, it occurred to me: Melrose is the type of greasy spoon diner that Penn and Penn students so desperately want but have failed to produce. Eat at Joe's was a spectacular failure and I didn't even get a chance to see El Diner.
Why? Penn money cannot buy the type of environment that 567,840 hours of service, well-worn stools (or booths), camaraderie between strangers and unsmiling help provide. Penn and Penn students are simply too clique-y, impatient, self-secluded and image-driven for a place like the Melrose to function anywhere near campus.
The most surreal part of the night is my reaction to the Melrose. While all the arrogance that Penn has beaten into me over the last four years was saying "MAKE FUN OF THESE PEOPLE," there is another side of me that wants to become a regular at the Melrose. I really can't explain it--the food isn't all that great (the scrapple tastes like shit--very soft, meaty shit), the waitresses aren't attractive and neither are the patrons.
My time at Melrose was one of those precious moments when I felt like I wasn't the right guy at the wrong place, or vice-versa. It's pretty nice, going somewhere and feeling like you were meant to be there. It's just a damn shame that this type of feeling is so hard to come by.
