DREAMING WITH TEETH

Earlier today I had this strong desire to go out for lunch with other people.
It's the first time in years that that has happened.

Normally I simply get something from a nearby place, retire to my cubicle, and bend over my computer reading Netherlandish newspapers while pensively shoving stuff into my snapping jaws.
Think of me as a crocodile with only a slight appetite.
It's just a LITTLE cadaver, honest!

Today I had a craving for food at a place in C'town. It's really not a long walk, maybe twelve or fifteen minutes.
The restaurant I had in mind has far too many choices, however, so dragging coworkers there could be problematic. Most of them mentally shut down at the prospect of interesting food.
Or metal chopsticks.

There are only three colleagues who could handle metal chopsticks.
And I don't want to frighten them off.
I like them.

It's interesting seeing how other people hold their chopsticks. White people are notorious for doing the two finger wobble, which sometimes sends slick bits flying.
Little Chinese children have an endearing tight clench with fingers bending flexibly outwards.
Some Japanese women grasp the shafts 'demurely', hard to describe. And well brought up people with exposure to calligraphy maintain a calmly balled basket posture to their fingers, wielding the chopsticks seemingly withouth effort, the sticks extruding from their hand as appendages that they were born with. Eating is an illustration of control, balance, and sound judgment.
Most people, however, do the crab-claw shuffle.
Part of it is leverage, part of it is utilitarian snatch and grab.
The most amusing chop-stick hold resembles a small forest creature who has discovered something incredibly delicious and is clutching it up to his face in rapture.
Mmmm, it's yummy! I found it!

Slithery rice-stick noodles in soup.
Narrow aluminum chopsticks.
Non-chopstick folks.
Disaster.

It's not that I wouldn't want to eat with any of my coworkers, but as I previously mentioned there are only three of them who could handle the stress. So either some people would feel left out, or they might even think that there was something suspicious going on.
One of the chop-stick wielders is female.
Very nicely so.

I would not want to embarrass her or set any malicious tongues wagging.
Instead I simply had something quick from across the street.
Gobbled it down while reading news on the internet.
It was my usual solitary feeding frenzy.
I am a swamp carnivore.

"When Bambi came down to the river bank for a sip of water, he didn't notice old mr. Croc lying submerged where the overhanging branches shaded the shallows. He splayed his thin rickety forelegs, and quivered and trembled as he extended his head down to the glistening surface. The moment his tongue touched the water the river erupted upon him - old mr. Croc clenched the little deer's fragile body between his jaws and with a vicious sideways jerk snapped Bambi's backbone, paralyzing the poor beast.
He was not yet dead when the large saurian pulled him under, but choked and gurgled while his lungs filled.  
Mr. Croc wedged Bambi's spasming body under a submerged log to soften over the next two or three days, then glided back to his hiding spot in the shadows, waiting for the next juicy victim.
He grinned to himself...... oh yeah, life was super good."

In a few days I probably won't even recall what I ate.
But I'll remember whom I ate lunch with.
He was scaly and spoke Dutch.

I probably won't have dinner tonight.
Instead I will go to the cigar club for a few pipefulls.
Quietly passing a few hours day-dreaming, perhaps in conversation.

There's absolutely nothing good on television.
I am not presently seeing someone.
So no reason why not.



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