Dinner party

I’m a good cook. Just, please, try to stay out of my way. I don’t need any help. So no, please don’t bring any side dishes. I have the side dishes already planned out. It’s the same with dessert. If you bring dessert, well, don’t bring dessert, because I’m telling you right now, no dessert, so go ahead and try me, bring that box from the bakery, I’ll be like, “Gee, sorry, looks like there’s no room in the fridge,” and then I’ll really push back the dessert course, make sure your lemon meringue pie or whatever it is inside that box gets nice and warm, really mushy, and I have just the serving dish I can put it on, it’s gross looking, like I think someone put it in the oven one time, and so it’s got all of these weird burnt-on grease looking stains, and you could tell it was just starting to melt, minutes away from losing any semblance of structural integrity.

I don’t need you to bring any drinks, I’ll handle the drinks. What, were planning on buying a few two-liter bottles of soda? Don’t even think about it. If you’re currently thinking about it, just stop right there, because I’ve got it covered. That includes cups, and yes, that includes ice.

And napkins. I’m taking care of napkins. Please don’t bring your coats. If you get cold inside, I’ll have plenty of extra sweaters and blankets available. Just leave it to me, all right? It’s just that, for my dinner parties, I like to maintain a certain continuity of theme, I’m trying to strike not just the perfect dinner, but everything, the ambiance, the lighting – please don’t touch the lights – it’s got to be just right.

Listen, I’d prefer it if everyone ate with forks in their left hands, OK? I know it shouldn’t seem like a big deal, but I’m going to be getting up to take a photo soon … no, nobody look over here, it’s got to be candid, and remember what I was talking about before? The uniformity? Yeah, just not like that. Like, try to cut the steak against the grill mark, just so everybody will be able to see the char.

You know what? I’ll cut the food. Just, everybody pass your plates over here. I insist. Hey, you two at the end, if you’re going to have a side conversation, could it maybe be something a little topical? I’m sure it’s very important to figure out who’s splitting a cab home with who, but maybe that’s something that you could have discussed before you stepped inside. Just think of it like a house rule, like maybe talk about the news, or sports. You know what? The news. Talk about the mayor.

Hey, over here, yeah you, nobody goes to the bathroom until after the first course. Look, this isn’t a restaurant, OK? The dining room is simply way too close to the bathroom, so it’s all got to be fit in somewhere, and that’ll be in between courses four and five. Yep, get comfortable folks. And besides, I’m not ready to go in there with you. There’s a certain way to do it in there, it may look like any other first-floor bathroom, but … well, I really can’t explain it, it’s just something I’ve got to show you how to do.

Seriously? You guys are leaving already? Well, let me wrap up some of this food for you, trust me, you’re going to love it, I’ve been working on this all day. Just, when you get home, make sure you adjust the presets on the microwave, like normally they’re set to nine or ten and nobody ever thinks about it once it’s set up. All you have to do is set it to six, run it for twenty-four seconds, then you set it to ten, and you pulse it, one second, wait, three seconds, wait, then you take it out, you mix it up a little, back to level six, thirty seconds, rest, wait, repeat.

You know what? I’m going to come with you, I just need to show you, this won’t take long everybody, just, feel free to hang out in the living room, you guys can talk about anything, well, feel free to open up the conversation somewhat, like I guess sports is OK. No come on, I insist, give me the keys, no I’ll drive, I know a shortcut, I’ll have you guys set up at your dinner table in no time.

I don’t make promises I can’t keep

It’s not that I’m saying I won’t do the dishes, it’s just that I can’t promise that I will. And believe me, I have every intention of coming home after work today and heading straight for the kitchen sink. Because, I know, I said I would do them two days ago, and then I said with even more emphasis that I would definitely get them done yesterday, and then when I fell asleep on the couch for the better part of last night, I begged, I pleaded, “Please. Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.”

And now tomorrow is today. And yes, I didn’t get them done in the morning, OK, even though that was my goal. But I still have until the end of the day, right? Technically I still have until midnight. And I’m going to get them done. But you want me to promise? Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?

I mean, I could think of a dozen or so reasons just off of the top of my head why I might not be able to get them done. That’s not to say that I’m not going to come straight home and put those rubber gloves on right away. But like, what if there’s a sniper? That happens sometimes, it happened in DC a while ago. Say people are getting picked off, and they can’t find the gunman, wouldn’t you rather I hole up at work? So in that albeit unlikely scenario, I wouldn’t make it home to do those dishes.

And I don’t want to break a promise, that’s just not who I am. Or what about a flash flood? It would the same exact situation as above, me not being able to make it home because of some sort of emergency. Tornado. Hurricane. Well, I guess not hurricane, because everybody would be talking about, making its way from the Gulf few days before it would hit here. But still. I said sniper, right?

Or what if I get home and the water’s out? I know it’s never been out before, but it could happen. What if that same sniper, what if he’s teamed up with someone bent on poisoning the city’s water supply? And maybe the detectives or homeland security, maybe they found out the plot before it was too late. But some of the poison made its way into the pipes, and so just to be extra careful, the city shut everything down. How are you supposed to do dishes with no water?

I guess I could maybe agree to a promise, but only if we sit down and go through all of the very legitimate excuses, however unlikely they may be, that would exempt me from actually following through. But, I don’t know, that could take a lot longer than we have, or I have, you know, time left in the day for me to fulfill my end of the bargain. Unless you want to add that to the agreement, one of the stipulations could say, “Unless we run out of time because we get caught up listing all of the ways in which I might be reasonably prevented from doing the dishes, including, but not limited to, this sentence.”

What if I die right before I make it to the house? Do you honestly want your last memory of me to be that of a promise broken? And what if that promise then chains me to this mortal coil? I’ll be unable to pass completely to the afterlife, I’ll be a ghost, a shadow of my former self, doomed to spend eternity futilely trying to make it home in time, before I die, but I’ll already be dead, I’ll be one of those ghosts that doesn’t know that he’s dead.

Do you really want that? And then years after you’re dead, you’ll be in heaven, I’ll be stuck haunting this house, the new occupants will have enough of my roaming around the halls, moaning out questions like, “Hooooney, where do we keep the extra spooooonges?” They’ll call up an exorcist, he’ll be a really powerful medium, I won’t stand a chance. What if I get banished to hell? Do you really think that’s fair? All because I made a promise to do one or two sinks full of dishes, a promise that the universe for some reason refused to allow me to keep?

Come on, just trust me here, I’ll get them done. And also, for real, where do we keep the extra sponges? Because, I know … I know you hate wasting sponges, but I hate using old sponges, they’re so slimy. Just … which counter, upstairs or downstairs? OK, and, that big lasagna pan, I mean, do I really have to scrub that? Or can I just let it soak? Because I don’t think I have that kind of elbow grease. OK, OK, yeah I’ll get to it. I love you to. No, I don’t promise, but the very next level down, whatever type of commitment that’s just slightly less binding than a promise, that’s what I’m committing to. OK, see you at home.

The soda elitist

Last weekend we had a bunch of people over for dinner. I picked up a few two-liter bottles of soda, which, I don’t know, I couldn’t really figure out how many I should have bought, I had no idea how much soda people were planning on drinking. I’d say in total, about one and a half liters went, but it was like half a liter from each bottle. And so, as the rest of the week went by, I’d stare at these bottles, wanting to dump them all down the drain, but my roommate insisted on keeping them around, “I’ll drink them!” he said.

And maybe he had a glass the next day, but no more than a glass, because the days passed and I started to keep track of the soda level inside each bottle. Day after day, it wasn’t going down, I told Bill, I was like, “Hey man, we really have to get rid of this soda,” and he was like, “Why? Just leave it there, it doesn’t matter,” but I tried to argue, I was like, “Bill, that stuff’s getting flatter every day, nobody’s ever going to drink it, let’s just dump it, what is it, like three dollars? Come on, you couldn’t pay me three dollars to drink a cup of flat soda.”

But I think I pushed a little too far, now Bill was starting to push back just for the sake of pushing back, which I don’t get, not everything has to be a huge power struggle, but still, he averted his eyes, I think he might have called me a “soda elitist,” which I actually took as a compliment, because yes, when it comes to soft drinks, I think you have to be exacting in your standards. Otherwise why spend money at all on bottled drinks? If you don’t care about the carbonation, you might as well just buy packets of Kool-Aid, it’s significantly cheaper.

We were at a stalemate. I started buying new soda, smaller sized bottles. I’d keep them nice and cold in the fridge. On Wednesday night I ordered some pizzas and asked Bill, “Hey man, help yourself. You want a nice cold Coke to go with that?” It was the Mexican kind, the stuff that comes in the glass “hecho en Mexico” bottles, real sugar, delicious. “Yeah man, that sounds great.” And so I popped one open and extended my arm before laying down, “So, uh, I guess this means we can get rid of those big guys over there, right?”

“Actually,” he recoiled his hand, “That’s a good point. You have the bottle, I’m going to work on those leftovers.” What a jerk. Just admit it when you’re wrong. And he went over to the counter, the bottle had all of these little condensation drops on the inside from having not been opened in so long, when he opened the top, and I was listening, there wasn’t even the slightest sound of any air escaping. That soda had to have been completely flat for a few days now.

But he filled up his glass with ice, I asked him for a glass also, for my fresh Coke, I wanted him to see the bubbles dancing out of the top, when I took that first sip, I made this exaggerated face, like they tickling my nose. “Ahh,” that ridiculous refreshing sound after I took my first sip, to which Bill offered the same thing with his sip, but I could tell by the look on his face that it was gross, he kind of puckered up as he tried to choke it down.

But what came next, it was probably the low point of our friendship. I was like a slice and a half deep into dinner, and I had just taken a huge sip from my drink. While I had the rest of the pizza in my hand, Bill grabbed the two liter bottle and poured the sickly contents of that expired plastic bottle right into my cup, right on top of my good soda. I still had probably more than twenty-five percent of the cup filled with the good stuff, and it was ruined, the rest of my drink spoiled by Bill polluting it with his week-old poison.

I turned my head and said, “Get that shit out of my face,” placing extra emphasis on the word shit, just to really drive home that point, like hey Bill, that was a real dick move buddy, you want to play games with your own soda? Fine. But you’ve totally crossed a line here. And he just kind of smiled at me, “What? Just giving you a little refill,” before taking a huge bite out of his slice, the pizza that I bought for him.

I went into a rage. I grabbed that bottle, I ran to the sink, I started emptying it out down the drain. There were still the other two bottles, and Bill made a move toward the kitchen, like what was he going to do, try and stop me? I grabbed a knife out of the block and stabbed a few holes right in the bottom. “What the hell man? That’s my soda!” he screamed as I placed the leaking bottles from the counter into the kitchen sink.

Bill looked like he was going to make a move, like he was going to push me or something, and so, I don’t know, I guess I was a little more agitated than I thought. I held out the knife still in my hands, like go ahead and try something. Not that I had any intentions of actually stabbing him. The whole situation had steered out of control. And that’s when I screamed out, “Steve!” because while we were fighting in the kitchen, my dog Steve had quietly jumped off the couch and made a move for the pizza. And he got it, it only took him like three or four bites, and he polished off everything.

Sorry, I can’t eat all of those hotdogs

I want to make it clear that, when I had said months ago that I would eat a hotdog for every person that donated to my race fund, I honestly wasn’t expecting such an outpouring of generosity from my family members, my friends, the friends of friends, it’s really funny how Facebook just kind of decides for you which of your posts will languish in obscurity while others, it’s like everybody sees them, your cousin, you cousin’s roommate’s mom, that mom’s sister, her kids.

Again, to all of those people that freely gave, I’m humbled, I truly appreciate it. But nobody could’ve expected that to go viral, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to eat all of those hotdogs, it’s not physically possible. So everyone, thank you, but it’s not going to happen. And the money’s already gone, the foundation cashed everything in once the race was over.

I get it, it is kind of a let down. If I were in your position, I’d feel cheated too. You saw something on the Internet, a random guy promising to eat a hotdog for every donation, you thought, that’s something I’d like to see, something I’d like my money to help finance. So thanks, and I’m just looking at the list here, Mike B. from Chicago, I really appreciate the two dollars you donated, that was cool of you, but just try to picture those two dollars going to help some poor kids somewhere, some poor, sick kids.

And, you know, I’m not trying to take away from your donation, but how far did you think that two dollars was going to go? I mean, if you’re donating two dollars to charity, and part of that donation comes with a hot dog, it’s not like I’m doubting your intentions. Or, you know what? Maybe I am doubting your intentions. You weren’t in it for the charity at all, were you?

Whenever you make a donation that comes with a gift, it’s never worth it. Like donate one hundred dollars and we’ll give you this charity t-shirt. If it were really about the t-shirt, I could’ve gone online had them screen printed. So stop harassing me about the money, OK? Because I’ve already told you, it’s gone.

And no, I wasn’t totally full of shit, I was planning on eating some hot dogs. Obviously, like I’ve said, I couldn’t have imagined my plea for donations to go viral. You think I chose for this to happen? Come on, in terms of stuff that I’ve put on the Internet, this “hotdog for every donation” campaign ranks probably in the bottom tier of things that I would’ve wished to have gone viral.

Like maybe some of my writing, some of these blog posts, I would’ve picked any one of these to have gotten even a fraction of the attention as my hotdog stunt kicked up. Maybe some publishing house could’ve gotten in touch with me, “Wow Rob, you’re a great writer, here’s a book deal.” But no, I’m stuck here getting threatened with a class-action lawsuit from a bunch of Internet strangers that paid an average of a dollar-thirteen to see another Internet stranger get himself sick from eating too many hotdogs.

Except for that one donor who gave over a grand. I don’t understand your angle, pal. I mean, maybe if I was super, mega rich, this might seem like a really twisted way at buying a laugh. Was it a mistake? Did your credit card get charged and you haven’t figured it out yet? Because even if it was on purpose, my original bet was one hotdog per donation, regardless of how much you donated.

Or maybe you really care about the kids, I have no idea. Look, I ran the race, you guys all donated. Can’t we just leave it at that? Is it really necessary for me to shovel down over four thousand hot dogs? Where would I get four thousand hotdogs anyway? I wouldn’t be logistically capable of cooking them all, serving them, let alone getting them down my throat. Just, I’m going to change my email address, OK? Just, leave me alone, I’m off the Internet for a while, all right?

It’s not that I don’t want to help

It’s not that I don’t want to help, I do. I want to help. I just don’t feel like it. If only I felt more like helping out. Like, I wish that I were in the mood to lend a hand. So I want to help, it’s just, I can’t get past that internal inertia, dammit, if only that weren’t there, then we’d be good to go, because I always want to help out, in any way that I can really, it’s just, right now, I don’t think there is a way. Because I’m so tired.

And it’s not that I don’t like that shirt you gave me. I do like it. It’s only, well I can never figure out the right occasion to wear it. Like, yeah I guess I could have worn it out tonight, but then that would have been it. The first time you put on a new shirt, that’s something special, something you can’t recreate the next time. After that it’s just an old shirt. So yeah, I’ll get to it eventually, but it has to be the right time. That’s something you can’t force. If anything, it’s too nice of a shirt. I may never get around to wearing it. And that would actually be a good thing, get it?

Please, don’t mistake my not eating very much of this meal as any sort of judgment on your cooking, it’s delicious, really, it’s just that, I’m still full from lunch. That happens sometimes, you eat lunch but it kind of just sits in your stomach. Right? And your appetizers, I mean, they weren’t that big, but they were really filling. Even just that one bite that I took out of those … what was that, a celery stick, yes, but filled with what? Yogurt? Cream cheese? Mayo? I couldn’t pinpoint the tartness exactly, and, when you put chocolate chips instead of raisins, was that on purpose? Those were raisins? Right, of course they were. And they were delicious. Can I take some of this home? Because I’m totally going to wolf it down tomorrow.

And come on, I think you’re a great driver, but I couldn’t accept a ride home from you, it would be too much. Besides, I always walk home, it’s only like seven or eight miles, I’ll be home in no time. I know, I did look pretty anxious the last time you gave me a ride, but don’t take it personally, I’m nervous in any type of an automobile. Christ, you should see me on an airplane. And the constantly checking to make sure you looked when you turned, the grabbing onto the side handle, the violent flinching when you kind of ran that red light. Well, it was pretty much red. Yeah, well, just because you didn’t get pulled over doesn’t mean you didn’t run the light. But whatever, you nailed it. You’re a great driver. But I’m going to walk.

And, again, I’m sorry if I misunderstood the reason you had us all over. I had no idea you were trying to organize canvassers to help out on Election Day. And bravo to you, seriously, that’s very commendable, getting out there, providing a great role model for the rest of us regular citizens. It’s not that I don’t want to help … I told you this already, right? Yeah, it’s just, I thought you were just having people over to have people over, not to fundraise or organize, or … and yeah, I’m a grassroots guy all the way. Except for right now. I’m so tired. I think that huge lunch from before, it’s turning into an upset stomach. Good thing I didn’t waste that shirt on tonight, am I right?

Well, hopefully this long walk home will help everything settle down inside. But let’s hang out soon, OK? Next Monday? Next Monday I think I’m busy. Actually, all of next week, and the week after that, man, I can’t believe I was even able to get free tonight. But this headache. Soon, definitely soon. See, look, I’m writing you in my calendar, “soon.” I’ll see you soon, man. Later.