“Make ’em put the slaw on the sandwich,” my brother-in-law intoned when I said I was going to grab a barbecue across the highway for lunch the next day; he had gone there the day before. In the south, slaw means only one thing: a soupy mix of shredded cabbage, carrots, and onions in mayonnaise (and, consequently, will never pass my lips). Knowing he meant only this and not something delicious like my slaw — which would have been WONDERFUL on this sandwich — I told him that I didn’t think so.

As it is, the slaw on the sandwich is an opt out.
Me: “Jumbo barbecue, please.”
SCBBQ: “Okay, do you want the slaw on the sandwich.”
Me: “Good lord, no.”
SCBBQ: “Okay then, no…slaw.” [He drew some symbol on the ticket and looked at me with suspicion]
Me: “You got chips?” [Brits…those are what you call ‘crisps.’]
SCBBQ: [waving back to a rack of Lay’s regular] “Yeh, I got them there. Want some?”
Me: “Just the plain? Okay, sure, what the hell.”

“I can dig up a pack of Sour Cream and Onion Kettle Chips,” he offered then after a short pause added, “if you’re IN to that sort of thing.” The implication was that only some sort of heathen or child molester or reader of gay cowboy pornography would make him produce these abominations from whence they remained hidden from the God-fearing customers.

Me: “No, I was thinking something with jalapeños or so.” This didn’t seem to make things right between us, but not any worse. Good sandwich, though. Would have been great with slaw on it.