27 June 2008

Pick of the Crop

Do you want to hear something disgusting?

I was in the men's room at work, going down the flow, making a brilliant rebuttal against my butt's contention that greenhouse gas emissions are not at all responsible for global warming in an elimination round that would be the envy of debaters everywhere, when I glanced up at the wall across from me, and what did I see?

Right there, smeared on the wall tile, was a tremendous BOOGER. A honkin' huge green dried up blob of snot.

Now, what in the hell kind of imbecile, while sitting on the toilet, feels the need to fish around in his nostril, retract a wad of nose slime, lean over to the wall, and smear the offending mucus plug on the tile? I mean, come on!

I get that sometimes in the privacy of the men's room you might feel the need to go a-pickin' and a-scratchin'. Granted. It's a nice quiet little sanctuary for such urges. But you're sitting on a toilet. There's a whole roll of toilet paper on the wall to your left. Why not deposit your nose goblin into a square of paper and drop it into the toilet? Why on earth would you make the conscious choice to plaster the wall with your nostril spackle? What the hell is wrong with some people?!

And not only that, in order to even reach the wall at that point, Mr. Shit-for-Brains would had to have leaned away from the toilet seat, probably raising his dumb ass off the seat and very likely smudging it with brain matter on the way down.

Sometimes I see the way people are, and I despair. On the other hand, it sort of explains how we have managed to turn the world into a festering garbage heap.

No, not that Booger!

And speaking of the way people are, tonight Zeeba and I went to the local grocery store to pick up a few items for a carpet picnic (thank you, Julia Roberts). We were standing by the Mediterranean olive bar choosing delectable treats such as fire roasted sweet red peppers, red pepper hummus, artichokes, Caprese salad, and Baba Ghanoush. We were chatting and joking and laughing and debating the options aloud to each other when this fellow who had been lingering near the bar since we approached suddenly came over and, pointing at the Baba Ghanoush, asked, "What is that?"

We told him that it was a roasted eggplant dip with garlic and a delicious smokey flavor that you eat with pita and it's the best thing ever and probably even better than hummus, and he said, "You probably just roast eggplant and blend it with olive oil. I like to roast my own vegetables - I make a marinade out of garlic and balsamic blah blah blah..."

This was all well and good. Zeeba and I are both foodies, so listening to some guy tell us his secret recipe for marinating vegetables was fine while we selected items to purchase. But this guy? He kept talking! He would not shut up, telling us how to make artichokes and how to roast vegetables and how to make this marinade or that marinade or what goes with what and on and on and on!

Then his son approached and said something about the chicken at the deli counter being really good; the best chicken of any of the deli counters at the grocery stores, and he walked off leaving Chatty Charlie there to tell us all about where he goes to buy his produce and how he used to go to some place I never heard of and then more about some way of preparing some food thing or another.

I tried to break us out of his tractor beam by smiling at Zeeba and saying, "Wow, this guy is making me hungry! Let's finish up and go home to eat!" but when we walked away from him to go and look at cheeses, he followed us, talking the whole time!

"I like my cheeses really aged; more aged than most Americans. If I can't get them that aged, then I age them myself, etc. ad infinitum."

Rookie mistake: I asked, "How do you age your cheeses?"

So he went on and on about hanging them in the basement and something about drippage and beeswax and so forth and so on. Then he talked about good cheeses only being made with goat milk and how he likes this cheese and that cheese and pointed out all the cheeses in the section and talked about the mold and the this and that and how you can't forget the bread! You need to have good bread to bring this all together!

And then... how he likes his bread. And how he doesn't. And which bread is the best for which cheese, or whatever or something, and blahbity blah ad nauseum.

Meanwhile, Zeeba and I were walking away, trying not to be rude to the guy (because seriously, how could we even hope to compete in that category?) saying something about having to finish our shopping and get home, and as we left that section of the store...

...he followed us.

He followed us through the bakery section, past the produce section, into the freak food section where the organic and gluten-free and vegan shit is kept, where I picked up a carton of soy milk for Zeeba's coffee in the morning... which is how we learned that we shouldn't forget about the real thing, because his sister - who was 5 years older than he is and ate wholistically and healthily and whateverily - is dead. And he is alive. And he grew up on a dairy farm and used to drink milk - unpasteurized milk - right from the oh, God, please get this guy away from us!!

Then he asked if we ever watched Diners Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network, and I admitted that I did and he asked about some rib show and how they gave away the actual recipes but usually they leave out one key ingredient but this time they gave the actual recipes and if someone were writing it down as they watched the show, well, then, boy howdy! What a feast they could make! And then he gestured at some packaged meats and lamented that everything is packaged ready to use and nobody likes to cook anymore, except, of course, him, and then, finally...

...finally, he said something about needing to go find his son, so we heaved a collective sigh of relief... until he realized that he had the car keys, and his son couldn't leave without him, anyway... so he followed us to the yogurt section where he regaled us with a tale of Something Farms yogurt that was really good or really magical or whatever the hell he said, and our ears were bleeding and we wanted him to go away, and then, finally, mercifully...

...He said goodbye.

So Zeeba and I ran to the cat food aisle, certain that he would not be doing any shopping in there, and huddled fearfully together until we felt that we could safely finish our shopping and come home.

What the hell was the point of that?!

And now, carpet picnic time. Ciao.

The Last Five:
I heard it on the radio - 27 July 2008
Happiness is... - 26 July 2008
Do bears shit in the woods? - 21 July 2008
Politics schmoliticks - 14 July 2008
words and pictures - 14 July 2008

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