Foo Bar
Let's change the names to protect the not so innocent. I took my young nephews, Foo (8) and Bar (5) for a day in
NYC this weekend. It was their first time there and I fatuously
imagined that the city would fill their senses and distract
them from the quotidian cycle of pinching and counter-pinching
(and the measuring of the balance of grievances that comes before the
next cycle). I figured that would be true even if they hated
NYC. The hubbub above ground and the KAPOW! of baked urine
below*, the rush of traffic and smell of diesel HAS to make
you feel that you are in some unusual place - perhaps unique, no? Well...actually?...no.
*The first time we entered the subway, Bar asked, "Is this a bathroom?"
(Good guess.)
Anyway, we went to the Jewish Museum and wandered around until 1:30 PM
before realizing that we hadn't eaten. There was a plausible
looking eatery nearby and we sallied forth from the museum and
"infiltrated this place of purveyance to negotiate the
vending of some edible comestibles." My first impression
indicated a level of fanciness that was incompatible with having
lunch with young children but at that exact moment, I had a burst
of (delusional) giddy optimism that commonly precedes all
large disasters ("I could steer this barge through Prince
Williams Sound if I were drunk and blindfolded.") and
we entered.
Actually, things proceeded well if perhaps a bit boisterously
until Bar inclined his chair a bit too far on the polished
marble floor. The chair and the boy shot to the floor
in a wink with resounding crash and the maitre d' was yanked towards
us as if he had been connected by an invisible string.
There was a short interregnum wherein we determined that Bar was OK
and we tried to mollify the maitre d'. Actually, he wasn't
terribly upset. He stood behind Bar and winked at the rest
of us to show he wasn't terribly upset and then he spoke a sentence
or two in mock sternness. I was just admiring the deftness with
which he carried it off when Bar suddenly burst into a paroxysm
of tears that teetered on the brink of hysteria for a moment
and then fell back into inconsolable grief. The maitre d',
shocked at the unintended effect, tried to smooth over the
situation with a string of bromides that trailed off into
silence as he scurried away. Now, you might think that the immediate
result would be a long period of studiously quiet chairsitting.
Not so. Foo immediately began his own Baconian experimentation
on the tipability of chairs and, as inevitably as a stone drops,
he entered the ranks of the fallen.
People who never saw Jerry Lewis at his prime tend to think
that physical humor is the easiest and lowest form of comedy.
This is wrong. Perfect slapstick requires a rare combination
of timing and physical grace. I'm proud to say that Foo appears
to have both talents innately. Even as the chair was crashing loudly
against the floor, Foo was up and standing with a perfectly blended
air of surprise, innocence and contrition. The maitre d' looked darkly
in our direction but thought better of coming over. Dire
threats were distributed liberally and there was a minute
(and deceptive) period of relative calm. We gobbled the rest
of our food while simultaneously calling for the check. We
were in fact just a moment shy of making an ignominious
exit when (for purposes of symmetry?, a need to complete
the standard tri-partite joke schemata? who knows?) Bar and
his chair went down one last time. As a dragnet of waiters
closed in on us from various parts of the room, we flung
collateral madly in all directions and fled out the door.
Oh, there was one other worthwhile bon mot. Bar had ordered
a plate of spaghetti with butter. It came in the form of
a rather large hillock. He put his fork in the center and spun
it in order to separate out an eatable portion but the attempt
was inexpert and the effect was that the *entire* mass was soon
hanging at the end of his fork. As he attempted (vainly) to
propel this bolus towards his oral orifice, the maitre d' slid
over to us. I couldn't tell if he was motivated by a civically
commendable need to impart spaghetti eating skills to the
general population or a selfish desire to protect his
restaurant from a rapidly spreading film of butter that
was emanating in circular rings from Bar's vicinity.
He commandeered Bar's spoon and fork and expertly wove 3
strands around the tines of the fork in one deft move. "This
is how *I* do it," he said. He paused a moment and returned the
cutlery. Bar put the fork back into the center and spun
the entire mass again, exactly as before. "This is how I
do it," he said helpfully with no hint of either irony
or sarcasm.
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