I just stabbed open my last carton of Peeps. I stocked up on them when they went on sale for 50 cents at Kroger and have sadly reached the end of my supply. I feel a little bit like a man deserted on an island—I’ve really got to pace myself and ration. It helps that like wine, Peeps get better with age, and so I’ll be able to resist devouring them for a couple of days at least. There are few greater delicacies than the crunchy Peep. But as I’m sitting here writing this there’s a fly perched on the eraser-end of the very pencil I used to puncture the plastic wrap. It doesn’t seem to be aware that a hostile force sits not 18 inches away. It’s just rubbing its feet and fluttering its wings—preening not unlike the girls who wear high heels to class do during class. But Mr. Fly has another thing coming if he thinks I’m going to share a single grain of sunshiny sugar from my little limbless bunnies. I’ll give him a real cosmetic mess to clean up once he lands on a flat, swat-able surface.
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I was sitting in this room full of people and there were two or three open seats on either side of me. It was one of those situations where you find a big open space of seats and sit right in the middle where it seems as though you won’t be a menacing presence near somebody you don’t know and in turn nobody will threaten you with heavy breathing or strange odors. I’d been tipped off that there would be free food, otherwise I would have rather stayed home and stared at the ceiling. As is the case with just about any end of the year departmental awards/recognition ceremony in the history of awards/recognition ceremonies, the English Department really knew how to throw an eyelid-drooper of a party. But centuries of research, experimentation and proven results have shown that baiting such a trap with fist-sized chocolate chip cookies and cheese and crackers will snare an audience no matter how grim the proceedings. I’d raided a couple of other departmental ceremonies and escaped with the bait before the gates fell, but I was actually supposed to be at this one and so stocked up enough snackage to last me until our captors released us.
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I just ate an entire pineapple and my tongue feels like I’ve been chewing needles. It was delicious but I’m beginning to regret chowing down so hard. The pros and cons of eating are difficult to balance, and I’ve found that I rarely make good choices when I think with my stomach. The last dozen or so pieces felt like pineapple-flavored steel wool. Eating the cubed pieces with chopsticks prevented me from eating too much too fast and getting sick, but I’m still wondering if it was worth it.
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I was at a bar with my roommates when this woman leaned over and poked me in the shoulder. I was sitting at a table facing away from her, minding my own business, and trying to enjoy my night. I’d already noticed that her chair was uncomfortably close to mine, but the place was packed out for this disgusting dying animal-type sound—I mean, a cover band—and so there wasn’t much I could do about the elbow-to-elbow mash. When she poked me in the shoulder I thought at first that it was an accident and ignored her. But then she leaned in closer, so close that I could feel her breath, kind of like the hot exhaust that comes out the side of busses, against my neck. Still not completely unusual for a crowded bar, but the age of the woman made it strange. I won’t say she was old, because who’s to say what old is, but she was definitely at least 30 years out of my target romance-demographic.
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