That may be true, but if it were done, some of us wouldnt have anything to eat. Roadkill? Ive done worse than that as a student. I even ate after PEOPLE...its called snarfing. Title: “Up Your Ass!” “So, my dear, inquired Kande, what is it that you have been wanting to explain to me?” “Mom, I found out the original reason for giving the finger! Guess: old or new?” “Well, old, right?”“Yeah, and whom do you think started it?” “If you’re having me guess, the answer probably is a surprise. It would be logical to point my middle finger at the poor, beleaguered Italians, because they traditionally catch crap for obscene gestures. I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s the Jews, so that they can try to take credit not only for the first alphabet, but also for the bird, right? Please don’t tell me it was Your People.” My daughter is Jewish. “Not this time! It was a couple of feuding German tribes, circa two thousand years ago. When one bunch took a prisoner, they cut off his middle finger. Without that finger the luckless guy’s swordsmanship kinda, shall we say, lost its edge. So when his people reassembled for another go, their front lines would present their finger-chopping enemies with their intact middle fingers to advertise their bodily integrity.” “Hmmm. And here I’d always believed that the bird’s appeal was designed to delight proctologists, or at the very least, ornithologists… Not that I’m disappointed; it’s a lovely story. And it reminds me of another lovely story, about my dear friend, Emil d’Antonio, although I never called him that in those days.” “Why not?” “Because of how we were introduced. There was an older married man, Bil Godsey, who had six beautiful children, but who, in spite of that, hosted many campus parties (known as ‘orgies’ in those innocent times). Further, he seemed to enjoy the company of other like degenerates” “You mean YOUR crowd?” “Exactly! Once, early in my campaign to insinuate myself into the group of my choice, I attended one of Godsey’s famous parties. Some well-meaning habitue ambitiously decided to acquaint me with Mr. d’Antonio. I was introduced first, and then, before the name d’Antonio could be pronounced, Emil blurted, ‘Up your ass!’ “Amused, I thrust forth my hand, “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Upyourass!” But I had little time to waste on such shenanigans that evening; my goal was to schmooze and pick brains, and it appeared that these people had brains to pick when they weren’t picking their noses. It hardly needs emphasis: Many of them were decidedly uncouth.” “That must have suited you fine!” “Oh, yes, indeed! I felt I’d reached the First Circle of Heaven! As the party proceeded (meaning that the inebriation level continued to reach for the outer frontiers), I had several opportunities to introduce dear Emil to those who had not yet had the pleasure. I’m sure it goes without saying how I introduced him, not that he cared. He might have been politely described as being ‘in his cups,’ but more accurately, he was ‘marinating in his cauldron.’ “He has become a great mystery to me, because now that I am trotting toward the direction of the Great Beyond, the internet announces that he is still with us, which is good, because he has done wonderful things. Either that is true or there are, god forbid! two Emil D’Antonios! “Not long after President Kennedy’s Dallas debacle, I read a newspaper story about a young man who possessed such an unlikely name. He had become a filmmaker, and the film for which he was getting publicity consisted of interviews of the rapidly declining population of eyewitnesses to the assassination. Of course, it occurred to me that such a filmmaker might not long survive. “Not that he was not already doing wonderful things even then. Observing him critically helped me to refine my art of snarfing. By the bye, ‘snarfing’ deserved to become a lexicon-honored word, but it stopped short of such an accolade perhaps for the same reason that I stopped doing it. The sport of snarfing was executed for only a limited time, nipped in its bud by the influx of new diseases and the reintroduction of old ones.” “You mean STD’s?” “Oh, no, nothing like that: tuberculosis, hepatitis and other fascinating microorganism-caused pestilences. Come to think of it, snarfing would probably be considered less socially acceptable today than what people do to get STD’s; the numbers of the infected prove the popularity of THEIR practices. Snarfing, however, did not catch on wholesale, at least not in the United States. The famed social critic and economist Thorstein Veblen noticed that we Americans have a nasty habit for which he coined his infamous label ‘conspicuous consumption.’ It appears that he was rather appalled. I, on the other hand, saw conspicuous consumption as yet another iridescent opportunity; I had been snarfing many years, but never so openly and flamboyantly as did the esteemed Mr. Upyourass.” “Mom, cut to the quick! What is ‘snarfing?” “It is a practice kindly volunteered to save those who endure too much wealth from being accused by the likes of Mr. Veblen of ‘conspicuous consumption.’ Since many “independent” (working) students were into food handling, we were in a prime position to effect such a rescue. A few of us ate our customers’ leftover food…sometimes boldly, sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes with subtlety, sometimes with baroque gesticulation, depending on situational cues, much like the street theatre that developed later. I snarfed constantly, because I had many food-handling positions, and because doing so was an exciting alternative to starvation.” “Omigawd! And I thought your fish-head soup was gross!” “My dear! In those Paleolithic times, fish-head soup was virtually free! And snarfing was completely free!” “Mom, don’t you have any couth at all?” “Well, not a whole lot. And needless to say, I trust, neither does your father.” “Did he snarf?” “No, Dear. He simply stole food.” “You never told me that before!” “It wasn’t worth mentioning. The food he stole was very good, but it would have been discarded due to the restaurant’s policy of presenting freshly cooked food. It’s the kind of stealing that restaurants expect, but they expect it done on the QT. He wasn’t eating after other people, so I suppose you approve of his STEALING, don’t you, Dear?” “At least it’s couth!” “Right you are! However, if you think your dear old mum was uncouth, allow me to elaborate on one of the escapades for which poor Emil became famous…” “The stage is yours.” “That being the case, Love, I shall set the stage by describing the Student Union, the social hub of the university. I had the good fortune to have often been employed there. The label notwithstanding, and with no gender fluctuations, I actually became a busboy. It seemed, then, that it was easier to call women ‘boys’ than it was to admit that the hiring practices had been forced to undergo revision. One of the Student Unions dining areas was known as the Tavern, which had the ambiance of a cave. “Ah, yes, with great sentiment I recall the student union. It hummed with international languages, with the mindless alumni’s recounting of forty-year-old-football games, with the cashmere-and-silk swishes of the skirts and underskirts of the sorority sisters, with the hasty slurping of its snarfers, and with the happy ‘hails’ of the delighted degenerates when they saw ME coming. I had been promoted from cafeteria disher-upper, to busboy, to Coffee Girl! With the power I thus wielded, I might just as well have been crowned Queen! A customer had but to raise his finger aloft (No, not that finger!), and there I was, the Toast of the Caffeine Addicts, pouring! Did I abuse my power? Never! But perhaps I may have forgotten who had already had his second cup of coffee… Did our customers, abuse my inability to recall? Of course! My buds, caffeine sots that they were, had cup after cup after cup, until Mr. Coffee Nerves had morphed their familiar faces into something that only Butthead would recognize. “It was in this dark setting that I witnessed the following take place: There entered a dignified gentleman, whose graying hair, mustache and leather elbow pads announced his lofty professorial position. This self-same gentleman placed his amply appointed luncheon tray on one of the tables in the dimly-lit Tavern Dining Room. Then, apparently having forgotten some culinary detail, he abandoned the aforementioned trayfull-of-food and rushed off. Such a vision was off limits to a snarfer, of course, unless s/he wished to take the risk inherent in elevating and/or redefining the rules-of-finesse for an established artistic endeavor. However, from my eye’s canthus I saw Our Friend, Mr. Upyourass, his Eyes on the Prize. “Hard to blame him: That meal stood like a siren singing to sailors, like a virgin lusting to be ravished, like…o, well, never mind the similes…and suddenly… he was on it, tearing and clawing, poking and stabbing like a buzzard on a steaming road kill! Nothing could stop him! “I cast my eyes down, mortified. However, in my peripheral vision I noticed some of our mutual acquaintances watching with lively anticipation and glee. ‘What do they know that I don’t?’ I wondered, as I heard Emil noisily scraping, chewing and gulping. This I discovered when Emil’s philosophy professor returned with his glass of water.”
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 01:09:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015