link to full NY Times article

Excerpt:

Dear Diary:

As I exited the Wall Street subway station stop one morning recently, I noticed a deli sign announcing a breakfast special. It offered "scrambled eggs and bacon on a roll, small coffee or tea: $2.25." I ventured inside, went up to the counter and ordered it. The eggs and bacon were prepared and, since I'm on the Atkins diet, I declined the roll and proceeded to the cashier, where I ordered my coffee.

"That will be $2.75," I was told. The cashier explained that there was a rule against substitutions and that "no roll" was a substitution. No appeal to reason availed.

More recently, at a deli on 58th Street just east of Fifth Avenue, I ordered two scrambled eggs on a roll at $2.65 as stated on the menu board. When I was asked if I wanted butter on the roll I said, "No, and if it's O.K. I'll skip the roll."

I was amazed to find out, again, that without the roll the same scrambled eggs would be more: $4.25. Being experienced now, I ordered the eggs on a roll and took my breakfast tray to a table in the rear, although I confess to having a certain fear that the management might assess me an additional $1.60 for my failure to consume the obligatory roll, which I left on my plate.


Mitzi Filson