A half century of evolution

The summer after I graduated high school, I worked at a chain burger stand. One day, the manager told us he had to go somewhere for a few hours (probably to see his bookie) and to hold down the fort for a couple hours. I was working the fry table (which, back then, involved peeling, slicing and frying) but noticed a few eruptions at the front window. During a lull in the action, I asked the counter guys what was going on. They replied that we were out of cream and the coffee customers were getting pissed off. I asked what they planned to do about it and they looked at each other and then me, like I was the idiot. “I said,” intoned LaForgia with slow emphasis, as though to a small child or foreigner, “we’re out of cream.” Ivecchio chuckled in appreciation of the implied put-down. I could’ve explained that was the problem, not the solution, but I had never seen anyone profit by pointing out the mental shortcomings of these two. Instead, I popped the till, pulled out a one and walked across the street to buy a pint of cream. I returned and handed it to LaForgia. He looked at me as though I had turned water into Merlot. Fast forward a half century. Today, I was with some people and we decided to have an impromptu picnic. We stopped at a big grocery store to get some food at their deli. I ordered a sandwich and asked the woman to put some mustard on it. She informed me they were out of mustard. Out of mustard? Not fifty feet away, there were about 300 jars and squeeze bottles of mustard, but she’s out of mustard. She didn’t appear as lethal as LaForgia so I was about to respond but one of my companions who knows me pretty well dug her fingertips into my arm. A half of century of evolution and I’m not seeing any progress.