The Misuse of Things
an excerpt

22. Vegan Food Fight
There is organic gluten-free pasta everywhere.
Jon is holding his own, dodging rotini and blocking chickpeas with the concave side of a white china side plate. The plate previously held the multigrain bun that's tottering on the front edge of our table. I lunge to rescue it, but in so doing I bump the table and the unfortunate roll plummets to a horrible death on the floor.
To make matters worse, just as I sit back the girl with the blue mullet nails me upside the head with a chunk of honeydew melon. I'm seriously considering retaliating with an entire bowl of Thai Quince salad. And the bowl, too.
Who am I kidding? I paid good money for this salad. I hunker down lower in my seat and scoop up more lettuce and noodles, impale a grape tomato on my fork, gulp a mouthful of fair-trade coffee.
We're under siege in a trendy little café on Crescent Street. The proprietor and principal chef is named Jean-Marie. He, yes, he is about my age or perhaps a year older. He describes himself as a postmodernist, post-punk genre‑basher, although he's currently threatening (en français) to bash heads instead.
Jean-Marie smacks his forehead with the palm of his hand, then runs the hand over his balding crown and down to the nape of his neck. He slams down the button on the intercom microphone, muting the Gentle Giant album playing on the sound system. "Tabernuche! Déposez le lapin, immédiatement."
Depose the rabbit?
I squint towards the front of the restaurant, where a table full of college kids from a nearby CEGEP is manhandling the café's plush mascot. "Oh, put down the rabbit," I muse out loud.
Jon is grinning. "So this is Montreal."
"Apparently."