Stroopwafels, Cold Cuts, and More

Today I write to you from the Delta Sky Lounge at LaGuardia Airport.

“Why didn’t Dave just start this entry by telling everyone he is the fanciest man alive?” you’re probably thinking.

And I totally get it. In fact, there’s not a time I walk into this joint when I don’t first remind myself where I came from- the mean streets of suburban Cleveland, a town where complimentary overnight oats and all-you-can-stomach chicken sausage aren’t just sitting on every flat service for the taking.

The truth is, this is my last free visit to the Delta Sky Lounge of the year in accordance with the rules of the credit card that got me in here in the first place. Okay, I’ll just tell you- it was my American Express Platinum card. I didn’t want to say anything because I realize it would only further add to the illusion that I am a fancy lad instead of the Cleveland street tough I am when I’m just sitting there, naked and wet, which is most of the time, the cops be damned. But here we are.

“You know what happens next?” the woman at the Delta Sky Lounge front desk said to me with equal parts menace and sex as I checked in earlier.

“Yeah,” I replied not-exactly-menacingly but probably sexily without trying. “I have to pay fifty bucks to get in.”

But I left out the part about how that definitely wasn’t happening because of that whole thing about me being a suburban Cleveland street tough above all else. Then I walked away, knowing we’d probably see other again, just not here.

The truth is, I already ate before I left the house this morning at 7:30am and only came in here for a taste of domestic flight glamour. I was throwing a few unnecessary items into my messenger bag when I discovered the bag of stroopwafels, the popular Dutch waffle cookie, my friend Harri gave me in Rotterdam a few weeks ago. Harri had recently moved to Rotterdam from Helsinki and gave me the stroopwafels as a gift before a show we did together in Rotterdam at Comedy Club Haug.

“These are very popular here,” Harri told, beaming like a man who was adapting to his new Dutch lifestyle so quickly it was actually kind of weird.

For the next few days, I was pretty much all about stroopwafels, eating a fistful of them in Rotterdam and then even more in Paris and London over the next few days to the point of medical concern. But then, like most items that eventually end up in my bag, I totally forgot about them. When I rediscovered them this morning, though, decided to dig in all over again while also trusting that Big Stroopwafel had probably factored in the likelihood of me forgetting about them when they made them and had pumped them with enough preservatives to ensure their survival long after I’m dead.

The truth is Harri’s gift wasn’t my first dance with stroopwafels. My friend Fran, whom I used to rent a room from on the Upper West Side of Manhattan over twenty years ago, turned me onto them. Fran was in her seventies and would dazzle me with tales of her world travels at the kitchen table each morning. At the time, I’d only been to Canada a few times and had taken a trip to England and Ireland once when I was in college, so I couldn’t get enough of her exotic tales. Don’t even get me started on the time she served cold cuts and cheese slices for breakfast one morning while explaining to me this was totally normal in most of Europe.

“This lady is nuts,” I thought while politely picking at a cold piece of ham.

I’ve managed to travel to about thirty countries since those days of crashing at Fran’s place. And darnit if she wasn’t right about those cold cuts and cheese slices. I’m off the cold cuts these days, but whenever I’m at a hotel buffet in Europe, I always make sure to eat a cheese slice or two in Fran’s honor. And I gotta admit- I kinda had that stroopwafel this morning for her too.