Coffee Table Declarations
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
I wish I knew how to link to one of my own previous posts, but I don't. You'll just have to take my word for it that on August 7th I wrote about how I had a friend in college with an unusual name and how I recently stumbled upon the contact information for someone by that very name. I took a chance and sent an email and it turned out to be her.
Last night we met after work (turns out she now lives in the town I work in) at a local pizza establishment. Due to the lovely weather we decided to take a pizza and go sit on the grass by the nearby lake for a picnic. Once we arrived and had each grabbed a slice, we settled in for a session of catching up. After all, it had been eight years since last we had spoken.
Soon my friend went for her second slice of pizza as I was recounting my directionless career path and lackluster social life since college thus far. She was almost finished with her second slice when I paused to grab my second slice and noticed a teensy ant trying to get into the pizza box. We tried to scare him away but he kept reappearing. Eventually we realized he was not the same ant, but several ants. When we opened the pizza box and looked closely there were a good many small ants inside. That was highly disturbing in its own right, but worse still was the fact that these tiny ants were able to somewhat blend in to their surroundings and were small enough to be missed by the naked eye if one was not paying attention. I was thankful that I had grabbed only one piece when we first sat down with the pizza but I'm afraid my friend was not so lucky. She could quite possibly have been consuming baby ants without so much as a second thought.
Thinking about it later I realized that I had my one slice on a paper plate resting atop the pizza box and that while I was chatting I wasn't continually watching my food. What I'm telling you is that I can't say for certain that I didn't eat actual insects last night. I'd rather not give this much thought so I'll just summarize by saying that we had a really good time. O.K., so our pleasant picnic turned into an episode of Fear Factor, but at least it broke the ice. Comments like, "I'd like a medium pizza with peppers and onions and ants please" and "Would you like some pizza with those ants?" followed by hysterical laughter almost made the whole ant-eating experience worthwhile. Almost.
Last night we met after work (turns out she now lives in the town I work in) at a local pizza establishment. Due to the lovely weather we decided to take a pizza and go sit on the grass by the nearby lake for a picnic. Once we arrived and had each grabbed a slice, we settled in for a session of catching up. After all, it had been eight years since last we had spoken.
Soon my friend went for her second slice of pizza as I was recounting my directionless career path and lackluster social life since college thus far. She was almost finished with her second slice when I paused to grab my second slice and noticed a teensy ant trying to get into the pizza box. We tried to scare him away but he kept reappearing. Eventually we realized he was not the same ant, but several ants. When we opened the pizza box and looked closely there were a good many small ants inside. That was highly disturbing in its own right, but worse still was the fact that these tiny ants were able to somewhat blend in to their surroundings and were small enough to be missed by the naked eye if one was not paying attention. I was thankful that I had grabbed only one piece when we first sat down with the pizza but I'm afraid my friend was not so lucky. She could quite possibly have been consuming baby ants without so much as a second thought.
Thinking about it later I realized that I had my one slice on a paper plate resting atop the pizza box and that while I was chatting I wasn't continually watching my food. What I'm telling you is that I can't say for certain that I didn't eat actual insects last night. I'd rather not give this much thought so I'll just summarize by saying that we had a really good time. O.K., so our pleasant picnic turned into an episode of Fear Factor, but at least it broke the ice. Comments like, "I'd like a medium pizza with peppers and onions and ants please" and "Would you like some pizza with those ants?" followed by hysterical laughter almost made the whole ant-eating experience worthwhile. Almost.
