One day in the future, when it's safe to gather in restaurants again, I'd love to try the following gag:
Before we enter the restaurant, I stuff a few peanuts up my nose. I think I could fit at least one peanut in each nostril; perhaps even two or three per nostril.
Then, I order something with peanuts in it.
I enjoy the dish normally. But as soon as the server comes around, I start to look a bit ill and frightentened. "Oh gosh," I ask, "Does this dish have peanuts in it?"
When the server says "Yes," or even "I don't know," I yell "I'm allergic to peanuts!" And then I sneeze the peanuts out my nose and onto the dish.
Of course I would leave a generous tip for the server.
The peanuts get stuck.
ReplyDelete"Gall Dide-Ung-Ung!"
"I'm sorry sir, I don't understand."
Red faced hand-waving. "Doh! Gall... Dide-Ung-Ung!"
"I'm sorry, we don't serve galled eiderdown. I'm not even sure what that is. This is a Moxies."
"Gall Dide-Ung-Ung Ebercency! Beeduts ub by dose! By dose! Oh my breshus dose! Bill I ebber sbell a rose again?!"
The waiter points to a photo of a common morsel on the full-colour glossy menu. "Can I get you a hamburger?"
Tilt head up. Point both forefingers at nostrils. Engorgement of tender nasal lining is almost too much pain to bear. "Hobbout a bobster fork. Jew godda bobster fork?"
"A lobster fork?"
"Jes!" Emnphatic, some wheezing. Eyes roll like jewelled dice.
"Here you are sir, your lobster fork"
"Ad lasd!" Pride shucked aside, the shell of civilization removed, a revelation of the soft nutmeat of numb panic in a public place. The waiter, the table guests, the surrounding tables watch as the narrow fork is jammed directly into the nostril. An insensate, visceral scraping right beneath the orbit of the eye as the tines of the fork come up against the pebble-like surface of the undislodged nose nut. To you, it's the sound of metal scraping directly on bone. To everybody else, it's the echo of your involuntary shriek.
"And that's how you ended up here?" the emergency room physician asks.
A mere nod. Sheepish. Local aneasthesia prevents vocal replies. The freezing finally becomes strong enough for the intern to attempt insertion and peanut retrieval with her chrome DeBakey Atraumatic Multi-Purpose Clamp.
"Good news" the doctor says, "The restaurant manager told me you can keep that lobster fork."
"Happy Anniversary," your wife says. She never pictured this day in her imagination, yet she was not wholly unprepared for its eventuality.
Yet again, the gold is in the comments. I laughed and laughed, Jeff, especially at the last paragraph.
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