"We, The Heathens".
We go to have Chinese for dinner.
And my friend who is visiting from another planet
is horrified and perhaps a little excited
also until I explain to her that we are having Chinese food, not
Chinese people.
We go to a place that serves not dumpling soup, which I love,
but soup dumpling with which I am unfamiliar.
The soup is actually inside of each dumpling
and everyone develops their own system of eating it.
As we poke our chopsticks voraciously
into the folds of the crispy fried whole exploded
fish, which is delicious, it becomes clear to me
that we would have no right to be shocked, or mortified,
or outraged, or even surprised, or upset should
some creature from another planet descend upon the Earth
plucking people off the ground and fry us up, tearing away
at our flesh with relish.
My friend, Martin, a sweet and gentle man,
is sitting quietly beside me with his uneaten hamburger.
I don't know how he managed to get
himself a hamburger in a Chinese restaurant, but there he sits.
And there, sits his hamburger with the top bun off.
Martin says he wants live ants on his burger,
but does not want to go hunting for ants himself.
So he's waiting for the ants to come
to the burger at which point he will replace the top bun
and eat.
I tell him that he'll probably have
better luck with that outside and he says,
that's a good idea.
Thanks.
And goes outside with his hamburger and that's the last
I ever see of him.
[LAUGHTER]