DINING OUT
We’re talking and sure we’re talking a little loud but we’ve paid —or we will pay soon—for this corner booth at the Golden Elephant with its white paper table cloth, will pay for the mulligatawny soup and the samosas and the saag paneer and the tandoori and the lassi and the tea, but meanwhile we have stories to tell—impassioned stories of in-laws and carpenters, of second marriage and second houses because what else is there to do really, but tell the tale of ourselves over and over, meaning-making animals making it up. And the pitch rises as we finish the naan and move toward the silky kheer we know is waiting for us. We’re emboldened by calories, food-drunk and, as I have said, impassioned, and the note comes, handed over by a server:
dear noisy diners, you have ruined our meal with your whining about the implacability of life with your characterizing and pigeonholing with your complaining. We have sat here gripped by the meanness of your talk, hardly talking ourselves, judging, judging, judging you as we know we must and now we render this verdict: you are loud, you are messy eaters, you have not combed your hair.
We have written this note on a torn corner of the paper tablecloth to say you have ruined our meal although it never occurred to us to speak to you or to leave the Golden Elephant before we finished our ruined meal. This is just to let you know we were incensed and we will dine out on this story for years.
We’re talking and sure we’re talking a little loud but we’ve paid —or we will pay soon—for this corner booth at the Golden Elephant with its white paper table cloth, will pay for the mulligatawny soup and the samosas and the saag paneer and the tandoori and the lassi and the tea, but meanwhile we have stories to tell—impassioned stories of in-laws and carpenters, of second marriage and second houses because what else is there to do really, but tell the tale of ourselves over and over, meaning-making animals making it up. And the pitch rises as we finish the naan and move toward the silky kheer we know is waiting for us. We’re emboldened by calories, food-drunk and, as I have said, impassioned, and the note comes, handed over by a server:
dear noisy diners, you have ruined our meal with your whining about the implacability of life with your characterizing and pigeonholing with your complaining. We have sat here gripped by the meanness of your talk, hardly talking ourselves, judging, judging, judging you as we know we must and now we render this verdict: you are loud, you are messy eaters, you have not combed your hair.
We have written this note on a torn corner of the paper tablecloth to say you have ruined our meal although it never occurred to us to speak to you or to leave the Golden Elephant before we finished our ruined meal. This is just to let you know we were incensed and we will dine out on this story for years.