Soul Food

Here is a scenario for you:

You get a table. It's two middle aged men. When you go to greet them they turn two pairs of glassy sheep eyes upon you and say, with total sincerity, "We are going to pray for you! What would you like us to pray about?"

Yup.If you are fortunate enough to live anywhere on Earth that is not the epicenter of the shiniest part of the Buckle of the Bible Belt then this sounds like a bad joke. I am not so fortunate, and it happens all the time here. 

So what is the appropriate response to this mind boggling question?

a) You can talk to God? Seriously? Awesome! Ask him where I put my car keys."

b) Tell him to make all the stupid people sterile please.

c) Please tell the Easter Bunny to stop bringing me those little coin things. They taste like lard.

d) Pray for me to get a real job so I don't have to deal with lunatics like you.

e) Dude, if God is as ineffable and omnipotent as you guys are always saying then you could just think to him in your mind. Therefore we both know that all this holy roller shit is just for show so we can all be impressed at how pious you are, which means you are probably using religion as a means of misdirection to obfuscate how utterly corrupt your soul actually is.

 

f) wow I can't believe I've made it to f. Maybe I should have gone with bullet points?

g) Don't bother. Wise men made Him up thousands of years ago to frighten the weak minded into behaving. You may as well pray to Santa Claus to bring me a pony.

All these things run through my mind while they patiently stare at me, holding hands over the table like they're at a seance. Grown men. 

I usually say something to the effect of, "Hey man, you know what? I'm good. I'm just happy to be alive."

"He'll have the mahi mahi."

Amen to that.

The Last Straw

I apologise for the puns. I believe it's what psychologists call a 'coping mechanism'.
Here's a scenario for you: It's a busy dinner shift and you are serving a tray of drinks to a large party of people. On one hand is a tray on which there are eight precariously balanced glasses of  assorted beverages. Your other hand is passing out these beverages to the table.  In addition to the dexterity this requires there is the added challenge of shoehorning yourself between these people  to place the drinks on the table without spilling them since they will inevitably stare dumbly at you like farm animals and offer  no assistance. As soon as the first drink touches the table one of these creatures will bleat out something about a straw.

"Can I have a straw?"

There is no reason they shouldn't be able to grasp the idea that it is a physical impossibility for you to simultaneously hand out a mess of drinks and straws. Check it out- it doesn't even occur to them. The logistics of how things get in their mouth is of no concern to them. It's up to you to make it happen. Now. Drinking out of a glass is just too slow. That shit needs to get in their mouth and they need a goddamn tool for that.

Holy crap, the Chinese have invented the Perfect Waiter!

How did we used to drink before straws? Conventional wisdom dictates that straws are useful because they reduce the contact between your teeth and the compounds in soft drinks that want to turn your teeth into mini marshmallows. But that kind of begs the question that if phosphoric acid and high fructose corn syrup are so destructive for your teeth that they shouldn't even touch them then maybe you should not be ingesting soft drinks at all, much less demanding a device to help you guzzle them down even faster.

What I'm curious about is if you were able to perform that miracle, i.e., if you had a vestigial third hand that grew out of your chest and this weird little appendage snaked its way out of your shirt and handed them the straw with the drink would they be impressed or horrified? Or would they even notice?

"Who had the sweet tea?"