The Archives Office clock reached eleven with the respectful
unobtrusiveness of one whose mission in life is to be ignored until 4:59
p.m. Without so much as a “Tah” to
his assistant, our career management level Statey, one Whiggin Blanquet, rose
from his calculations of his DROP payment at his faux-wood desk, grasped his walking stick and strode out the door to
his near-by reserved parking spot. He quickly drove off toward his favorite lunch spot
in Cloverdale—Roux—where he was to be treated to lunch and to a rare
conversation with his foil/counterpart, one Chase N. Allpots, the decayed
gentleman from Ireland.
“I’m starving,” Whiggin Blanquet announced, making an effort
to sit down gracefully and read the menu at the same time.
“So I gathered,” said his Irish host, “from the fact that
you were nearly punctual. Perhaps
I ought to have told you that I am now on an Atkins diet. In your absence I’ve ordered two bowls of gumbo and
rice without the rice and a truffle pasta salad without the truffles
and pasta. I hope you don’t mind.”
Blanquet pretended afterwards that he did not go white above
the collar line for a fraction of a second before he realized Allpots was
trying to make a joke. He was
saved when he saw the waiter approaching with two cups of gumbo with rice piled
above the rim and his favorite truffle pasta salad that he one day hoped would
be named for his boyhood pet and beloved truffle-hunting piglet: Mortimer. (For a prior post mentioning dear Mortimer, click here.)
 |
| This little pig could hunt |
Whiggin Blanquet breathed a sign of relief.
“All the same,” Blanquet said, “you ought not to joke about
such things. There really are such Atkins people. I’ve known people who’ve met them. To think of all the
adorable things there are to eat at this restaurant and in the world and then
to order and go through life munching tofu and being proud of it.”
“These Atkins people are like the Flagellants of the Middle
Ages, who went about mortifying themselves,” Allpots sniffed.
“They had some excuse,” Blanquet said. “They did it to save
their immortal souls, didn’t they? But as for these Atkins dieters, you needn’t
tell me that a man who doesn’t love pasta and bread and truffles has got a
soul, or a stomach either. He’s
simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.”
Blanquet and Allpots relapsed for a few golden moments into
tender intimacies with a succession of rapidly disappearing shrimp and
truffles.
“I think shrimp and truffles are more beautiful than any religion,”
Blanquet resumed presently. “They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they
justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly
horrid to them. Once they arrive
at the lunch-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing.
There’s nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the unselfishness
of a shrimp or a truffle. Do you like my new
tie? I’m wearing it for the first time today.”
“It looks like a great many others that I have seen lately,
only worse,” said Allpots. “And
you really should try to avoid marginalizing religions by comparing them to shrimp or truffles.”
“Touche,” said Whiggen Blanquet once again mindful that the
skin-flint Allpots was actually treating him to lunch for a change. “To what do I owe the honor of this
fine occasion?”
Allpots became apparently serious and lowered his voice
saying: “We may not agree on much—or even enjoy each other’s company for that
matter—but we do agree on one thing: Roux for lunch. And those of us with the sense to know True Banh Mi from a
Taco Bell burrito must patronize our fine lunch spots to keep them here when we
need a Shrimp Ceasar Po’boy or Tuna “Nicoise” Salad with a Pimm’s Cup.”
Dear me, Blanquet thought to himself, Allpots has found
something worth supporting with his purse and the old boy had a point.
“Well then, “ said Blanquet finishing off the last bit of
pasta, “I shall show my support for the cause by ordering one of those divine
Shrimp Caesar Po’Boys and a Vodka martini.”
Allpots wiped the trace of gumbo and the beginnings of a
smile from his lips, and slowly lowered his dexter eyelid. Which, being interpreted, probably
meant, “Not on my tab.”
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