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“Do you even know what you want?” asked Mrs Monty, returning to her favorite topic.
“I got some idea,” said Romeo.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I think I’ll know it when I see it.”
“It?”
“Her. I think I’ll know her when I see her.”
“Aaaaahhhh…” sighed his mother, dismissively waving off her only son like she’d done a thousand times before.
“Aaaaahhhh… yourself,” said Romeo, smiling and waving her off in return.
“Aaaaahhhh…,” said Monty, playfully, waving them both off. Just because it’s what they did. It was one of their things. Then he added “Come on, we don’t want to be late.”
Soon they were thick in the middle of a large crowd, all standing in front of a stage at the center of the fair.
Several stellar events had happened up on the stage that day. Earlier there was a pie eating contest. A skinny cashier from the local Grab ’n Go took the title by eating nine blueberry pies in nine minutes. He then refunded at least eight of those pies in three minutes. The mess was epic.
After that, some of the kids from the summer rec drama group did a few select scenes from Suessical the Musical. Which was fine till the Cat in the Hat took a tumble off stage left and broke his ankle. Then a local tribute band made up of two pastry chefs and a trio of bakers called Macaroon Five rocked the house with their spot on rendition of “Sugar”. Now it was time to announce the winner of the cheesesteak competition.
“Come on, let’s get closer, over there,” Mrs Monty said, as she pointed to a choice spot near the stage.
Then Monty tapped her on the shoulder and directed her attention just to the right of where she wanted to go.
“No. Really?”
Close to where she wanted to go, too close for her liking, was Cap and his wife. Seemed they’d already taken up a spot right near the choice spot she was eyeballing.
“What do you want to do?”
“Well, I don’t want to go over there anymore,” she said bitterly.
“How about there?”
“I guess… Honestly, what are they doing here?”
“Same thing as us I suppose.”
“Oooh… I loathe them.”
“I know you do.” He knew because that’s what she always said when she saw them - I loathe them... He grabbed her hand. “Come on. Let’s go this way.”
Romeo stayed put but called after them. “How long you gonna keep up this silly feud?”
“It’s not a feud,” replied his dad. “We just don’t like them.”
“A lot!” said his mom, as they walked away.
“Yeah, a lot,” added his dad. “Besides, they started it.”
Romeo shook his head. This whole Monty’s versus Cap’s thing had been going on for years. It all started when Monty’s opened, about a decade ago. At that point, Cap’s had already been around for a while. Long enough for them to comfortably call themselves the Sultans of Steak. Long enough for them to think they were the team to beat. That was the first year the town held the street fair and consequently, the first time they’d held a food competition.
It was the Mayor’s idea. Of course, he was only a councilman back then. But, to his credit, the whole thing took off and quickly became a summer ritual. Which, word has it, inevitably led to him being elected Mayor. Monty’s, the newcomer, won. Which pissed off Cap’s to no end. And thus, the feud…
It was silly. There was certainly enough room in town for both of them. Not to mention the other dozen or so places that either specialized in cheesesteaks or sold them on the side. All this thanks to the Mayor. His love for cheesesteaks was legendary. He grew up in Philly after all. And that had led to the proliferation of places in town. But this feud that his parents insisted wasn’t a feud was getting feudier every year.
