Fun_People Archive
1 Jun
The going-away lunch for Sharon...

Date: Wed,  1 Jun 94 00:13:25 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: The going-away lunch for Sharon...

[In reply to a memo about the menu for a going-away lunch... -psl]

Forwarded-by: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: leedom@gauss.asd.sgi.com Fri May 27 13:35:46 1994

Dear Jodi,

Thank you for arranging this luncheon for Sharon. I'm deciding what 
to order, and I have a question.

What about us carnivores?  I want meat. Red raw meat. I want them to
lead it in on a rope and I want it to "moo" when I bite into it. I don't
want anybody I know to see me eating "rice pilaf" or  "chicken Fresco".
In fact I don't want anybody who knows anybody I know to see me doing
so. I want a dignified American meal of steak and potatoes by God,
served with flagons of blood-red wine. I want Hungarian red wine, with
a picture of a cow on the label.  I want to think about Eastern
Europeans making this wine for slave wages and making it badly. I want
the whole bottle. I want several.  I want it served on a white
tablecloth and I want that tablecloth to be so soiled when we're done
that it can't even be used for rags.  I want a meal to remember, in the
midst of bawdy company. I want someone to tell off-color jokes and I
want us all to laugh till we cry.  I want some of us to discover that
the person we've mumbled at as we've passed in the halls these last 5
years is a sexual rogue. I want several people to fail to return to work
afterward. I want to see a disciplinary memo sent down from the
director's office in the wake of all this. I want the restaurant to
refuse to serve anyone from the Lab for the next two years. I want to
generate gossip. I want media coverage. I want arrests. I want some
careers to be launched and others destroyed. I want this luncheon to
divide time into a before and an after.  Despite her acute embarrassment
at all this, I want Sharon to change her mind and stay.

That's what I REALLY want.  I just KNOW you're going to tell me I 
can't have it.  So I'll get back to you with my food order.

© 1994 Peter Langston