The sighting.

Today, one of my coworkers and one of my most loyal "Life in the Corn" readers, Jody, had her birthday. So, of course, since our office is wont to do things like this, we all took her out to lunch. (Ne mutlu doğum günü, Jody!)

You can see where this is going.

Oh yes.

The Chow Bar.

You all may be wondering why I keep going back if I know that I can as easily be served street-grade cocaine-water as shrimp lo mein; the answer is simple. BECAUSE I WANT TO. Yes. You can't stop me! It's greasy! It's authentic! And as long as I stay away from the "hot" tea, all should be OK. Of course, the temptation is great. Other customers were brought those small, white teapots and tiny teacups and I wanted to shout to them that they were damaging any chance any of them had for making a child one day, or scoring well on a standardized, culturally-biased exam, or staying meaningfully employed, what with all the "public service" they would be doing under railroad trestles in the wee hours for some good smack. But I held back: humans need to learn lessons, and that was one that Brooke and I, God love us, learned the hard way. From the kitchen, the teapots sang to me in their stilted Engrish, but I had more than fifteen people who (I hope!) would have smacked the cup out of my trembling hands as I lifted it to my increasingly furry face.

Whilst cavorting in the merry gaity of Chinese buffet-ness, Brooke noticed something by the window. More like it, someone. Someone very... special. It was none other than the international student who had, at length, asked her to go out with him despite the fact that she is, oh, I dunno, BLISSFULLY MARRIED. Time and time again, Brooke dealt with the student with poise, grace and not a little bit of stern wording; time and time again, the inappropriateness continued.
"It's like you said in your 'blog about monkeys", Brooke told me as we walked back to the OIS; she was flanked, at the time, by both myself (hairy Mediterranean mofo) and my roommate, Tony (ex-Navy and ex-Memphis police officer). "You hate monkeys because you just can't reason with them, and that's why they are dangerous."

First: someone actually used a passage from my 'blog in a relevant and meaningful way! Now I can be assumed to heaven; my work is complete!

Second: True dat, sistah.

I think the people who are most dangerous in this world are the ones who just won't, for the love of the weeping baby Jesus in the manger, LISTEN TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. "People hear what they want to hear", you all grumble, and yes, that's true. But when what someone wants to hear is something that someone else feels strongly against, bad things happen. How many women have been assaulted because their attacker wanted to hear "yes, yes" when they were saying "get the eff away from me, you creepy ass!"...?

But know this: if you eff with someone I care about, what will happen to you is what happened to Brooke's special friend. Namely, my roommate and I will wait for you in the parking lot and we will administer the shiv. You will spend the rest of your "days" decomposing in a shallow grave and a mushroom hunter will find your pathetic remains several years from now, and the only way you'll be identified is from your dental records.

Just food for thought.

Have a great one, Bloomington.

Dom