Food's Moods
Throughout my not-quite-30-odd years, a few commonplace things have consistently eluded me. The most prominent of these is the seemingly simple act of eating food with a knife and a fork. Now, I'm fairly certain there's some devilishly straightforward trick that the rest of the world isn't letting me in on; some way of ambushing the steak before it jumps off your plate, or of tricking the spaghetti into thinking your fork is actually a pretty nice place to hang out. Everyone insists, however, that this is just me being clumsy. Nothing more, nothing less.
I've therefore come up with a theory that suits me, and that theory is that food simply doesn't want to be eaten. Think about it for a second, and you'll see that despite being palpably untrue, the idea does hold some appeal, yes, yes? Your food desperately fears mastication and digestion, and there are only a select few persons in the world sensitive enough to pick up on the harrowing psychic screams of the doomed kielbasa, let alone the quietly mournful vibes of the forlorn potato. Those persons are myself, some guy in Beijing called Xu, and successful film and television actor David Spade.
My hypothesis, bullshit though it may be, is further strengthened by the fact that other skills involving manual dexterity (such as typing, playing the piano and tapping out the artfully intricate sequence of complex commands necessary to kick your motherfucking ass with Lei Wulong, motherfucker) are not a problem for me at all; to the contrary, I can claim a high degree of proficiency in most of them. It is therefore only in the arts of silverware kendo my fingers fail me.
Viewed in this unique and totally wrong way, my inability to use a knife and fork like other people is transformed from "maladroit fumblings of utensil-challenged yokel" to "unconscious expression of divinely charitable nature." I like this view much better, even if I always end up eating the food anyway.
I mean, at least I made an effort, right? Not like you soulless pricks.
Next week on Things Beyond My Faculty: Putting Out Cigarettes. Stay tuned.
I've therefore come up with a theory that suits me, and that theory is that food simply doesn't want to be eaten. Think about it for a second, and you'll see that despite being palpably untrue, the idea does hold some appeal, yes, yes? Your food desperately fears mastication and digestion, and there are only a select few persons in the world sensitive enough to pick up on the harrowing psychic screams of the doomed kielbasa, let alone the quietly mournful vibes of the forlorn potato. Those persons are myself, some guy in Beijing called Xu, and successful film and television actor David Spade.
My hypothesis, bullshit though it may be, is further strengthened by the fact that other skills involving manual dexterity (such as typing, playing the piano and tapping out the artfully intricate sequence of complex commands necessary to kick your motherfucking ass with Lei Wulong, motherfucker) are not a problem for me at all; to the contrary, I can claim a high degree of proficiency in most of them. It is therefore only in the arts of silverware kendo my fingers fail me.
Viewed in this unique and totally wrong way, my inability to use a knife and fork like other people is transformed from "maladroit fumblings of utensil-challenged yokel" to "unconscious expression of divinely charitable nature." I like this view much better, even if I always end up eating the food anyway.
I mean, at least I made an effort, right? Not like you soulless pricks.
Next week on Things Beyond My Faculty: Putting Out Cigarettes. Stay tuned.
posted by fnoonf at 21:24
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