The above quote reminded the Dharmaspoon Guy of a dinner party he and his wife recently attended. I perhaps should have shared the quote with the guests. Highlights of the evening's surreal events are described below. I warn you that several animals are harmed/killed in the telling of this story, so reader, beware:
“…so, I decided that I have had enough. I wait out in the garage, for him to come back. Well, eventually he does, and so I corner him and start beating him with the shovel…and he’s not having any of it…he’s giving me quite a hard time…”
“Pardon”, I say, thinking maybe I’ve heard something wrong, suspecting that I hadn’t.
I guess it’s my fault. I had been trying to tune out the incessant chatter, instead focusing intensely on my fork, wondering if I stuck it into my hand if it would be less painful than enduring the rest of the conversation.
I usually pride myself in being able to endure brutal dinner conversation, yet I was unprepared – from the domineering, pedantic, dinner host, who apparently made something of a past time of bludgeoning small animals to death, to Herman and Agnes (not their real names, although they probably deserve to have them used), the insufferable couple who monopolized most of the conversation, alternately by describing their dull and uninteresting jobs in excruciating detail, and coming up with fantastic lies built off of random things said in conversation, like it was some kind of improvisational exercise. And maybe it was. How else could you explain discussion that included talk of firemen burning down houses “to make a point”, theories about how the homeless guys with signs at highway exits all make $300 a day and are actually part of the mafia, descriptions of how Guatemalans ride on top of trains even though “there are no seats up there, so they have to hang on tight”, and the fact that if anyone did actually have something interesting to say, a few second later, Agnes would remember that she had the same thing happen to her or had an encounter with one of the players in the story. Like if you said there was an arsonist in your town in the ‘80s, she’d say that she remembers, that the arsonist was in fact her neighbor, and that she had tried to burn her car, “but it didn’t take.”
With the exception of my wife, the only other people at the party worth talking to were in exile at the far corners of the room. Had my wife not been directing all of her resources to preventing herself from actually leaping across the table and throttling the female member of the insufferable couple, we may have talked.
“I said, I was beating the raccoon with the shovel, and he was giving me a hard time…”
Why did I bring dessert? It pretty much guaranteed that we would be there for the duration. I thought of making some other excuse, so we could leave early, but I really liked the pie plate we brought. It was actually a nice piece of pottery and I didn’t want to abandon it.
“Oh.” I said, hoping the rest of the story was about a rabid animal that had been terrorizing the household… “Did it seem rabid?,” I asked hopefully.
“How should I know?”, the host replied. “Anyhow, the raccoon kept getting into the food, so it had to go…”
“So you beat it with a shovel?”
“I believe in a fair fight”, he said, with no sense of irony.
I wanted to ask him if the raccoon had a shovel too, but I got the sense that if I kept it up, I would be next. He continued to describe the act of bludgeoning the animal to death. He really got into the story and when he was done, we all sat there in stunned silence. For about 30 seconds. Then Aggie cleared her throat and announced: “There was this one time I came home and Herman was beating a rooster with a 2 x 4…”
“Pardon”, I say, thinking maybe I’ve heard something wrong, suspecting that I hadn’t.
I guess it’s my fault. I had been trying to tune out the incessant chatter, instead focusing intensely on my fork, wondering if I stuck it into my hand if it would be less painful than enduring the rest of the conversation.
I usually pride myself in being able to endure brutal dinner conversation, yet I was unprepared – from the domineering, pedantic, dinner host, who apparently made something of a past time of bludgeoning small animals to death, to Herman and Agnes (not their real names, although they probably deserve to have them used), the insufferable couple who monopolized most of the conversation, alternately by describing their dull and uninteresting jobs in excruciating detail, and coming up with fantastic lies built off of random things said in conversation, like it was some kind of improvisational exercise. And maybe it was. How else could you explain discussion that included talk of firemen burning down houses “to make a point”, theories about how the homeless guys with signs at highway exits all make $300 a day and are actually part of the mafia, descriptions of how Guatemalans ride on top of trains even though “there are no seats up there, so they have to hang on tight”, and the fact that if anyone did actually have something interesting to say, a few second later, Agnes would remember that she had the same thing happen to her or had an encounter with one of the players in the story. Like if you said there was an arsonist in your town in the ‘80s, she’d say that she remembers, that the arsonist was in fact her neighbor, and that she had tried to burn her car, “but it didn’t take.”
With the exception of my wife, the only other people at the party worth talking to were in exile at the far corners of the room. Had my wife not been directing all of her resources to preventing herself from actually leaping across the table and throttling the female member of the insufferable couple, we may have talked.
“I said, I was beating the raccoon with the shovel, and he was giving me a hard time…”
Why did I bring dessert? It pretty much guaranteed that we would be there for the duration. I thought of making some other excuse, so we could leave early, but I really liked the pie plate we brought. It was actually a nice piece of pottery and I didn’t want to abandon it.
“Oh.” I said, hoping the rest of the story was about a rabid animal that had been terrorizing the household… “Did it seem rabid?,” I asked hopefully.
“How should I know?”, the host replied. “Anyhow, the raccoon kept getting into the food, so it had to go…”
“So you beat it with a shovel?”
“I believe in a fair fight”, he said, with no sense of irony.
I wanted to ask him if the raccoon had a shovel too, but I got the sense that if I kept it up, I would be next. He continued to describe the act of bludgeoning the animal to death. He really got into the story and when he was done, we all sat there in stunned silence. For about 30 seconds. Then Aggie cleared her throat and announced: “There was this one time I came home and Herman was beating a rooster with a 2 x 4…”
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