Working the Buffet Line

We could be wrong (and probably are, considering that we really don't know what Marty Lipton actually looks like), but we swear that a few months back, we witnessed Marty Lipton working the buffet line at a luncheon that we attended.


The consumate professional indeed (after all, he DID invent the poison pill!!), we stood in awe as we watched the man gladhanding the high-rollers at this [redacted] a plate gala, shaking mitts with his right, all the while balancing a plate full of salted and cured meat in his left. Never before have we seen a man more adept at working a buffet line and a crowd at the same time. And when it was all over, from what we could tell, he had not only spoken, at length, to every important businessperson at the function, but had also managed to put down at least two plates-worth of the moist brisket (which, we should add, was a little too rare for our taste).

If it was, in fact, Mr. Lipton, given what we saw, we have no doubts as to why he is consistently chosen to represent the veritable "who's who" list in mergers and acquisitions (much to the chagrin, so we hear, of his purported chief competitor/arch enemy, Joe "Joey Joe Joe" Flom)--because he clearly understands balance. Then again, it really could've been anybody working that buffet line that day, because again, we don't actually know what Lipton looks like-- we simply thought we heard somebody say that it was him, and we like to believe that we were lucky enough to be in his presence that fateful day.