We are the crayfish eaters
Right here in Bishop Hill
We are the crayfish eaters
Right here in Bishop Hill
See how many crayfish you can
Eat eat eat!
See how many crayfish you can
Eat!
I had an awful Saturday. I know I don't usually come here to journal (from the Latin journar, "to bitch about one's day"), but this is just a story I have to share. It is a tale of deception, harrowing escapes and a little shit brat whom I would gladly behead.
Last week I was asked by a "friend" if I wanted to attend a crawfish dinner and swing dance party, $5 admission. My initial misgivings against shellfish were assuaged with "there will be Swedish meatballs, too." Seeing as how the only things getting me out of the house these days are working out and Bible study, I said "sure." I then signed an agreement to attend in my own blood, using a raven's feather for a pen.
It turns out "come" means "help set up for a dinner you have no interest in eating." The long and short of it is I wasted a couple of hours setting tables and cutting bread. I did it all with a shit-eating grin.
That's the one.
This whole thing was a Swedish "cultural" event, in the sense that culture is an amalgamation of stupidity and garishness. So, everything was decorated with crawfish and we had to wear stupid hats. These included sskullcaps with graffiti-like designs of black people eating hot dogs, "Cat in the Hat" types and even a couple of jesterly choices. Of course, in the spirit of "ausgeshlofen," as the Germans call it, I could not be let alone when I didn't want to wear a stupid hat, despite the excellent hair day I was having. Oh, no, I just had to put on a hat that screamed to the world, "I have embraced the Swedish ways with a tie-dye yarmulke."
This androgynous sap has my envy, for shit's sake.
Then the old people arrived. I don't know why I thought an event I was invited to by a woman in her early 20s would have more people in my age range, but there you have it. I could talk to my Bible study group, but most everyone else could remember Pearl Harbor and when "grifter" was something you could put on your W-2. The only exceptions were two of the men at my table. Trying to strike up a conversation, I asked, "so what do you guys do?"
"I farm."
"I'm a butcher at Jimmy Dean's."
Polite speech would then include, "what do you do?" But no, they didn't care, being so boorish I could have stabbed them with my fork. Instead, I got to listen to them discuss rain while another guest at my table wheedled his inanity. Sure, this kid was at least 12, but why act your age when your farmer daddy will placate you, since your his son; the man was clearly embarrassed by his daughter, which perplexed me because his son was a little hellion.
I was trying to acclimate over a dinner of crawfish, and that was the big problem. I had been hungry for hours, and when I'm hungry, I'm irritable. And when all I have to eat is this:
"I farm."
"I'm a butcher at Jimmy Dean's."
Polite speech would then include, "what do you do?" But no, they didn't care, being so boorish I could have stabbed them with my fork. Instead, I got to listen to them discuss rain while another guest at my table wheedled his inanity. Sure, this kid was at least 12, but why act your age when your farmer daddy will placate you, since your his son; the man was clearly embarrassed by his daughter, which perplexed me because his son was a little hellion.
I was trying to acclimate over a dinner of crawfish, and that was the big problem. I had been hungry for hours, and when I'm hungry, I'm irritable. And when all I have to eat is this:
This is how it's served, by the way.
I was in little mood to eat, especially since the process of eating these bugs includes the step "suck the salt water out." I do not eat anything I have to fellate first. Of course, this didn't stop the aforementioned wheedling, which I received from the little shit and the two "adults.""Try a crawfish."
"No, thank you."
"No, you should try one."
"I'd rather not. It has eyes."
"Try it."
"I respectfully decline. I don't really like seafood."
Then the kid really sets in. "Do you like shrimp?"
"No."
"Lobster?"
"No."
"Crab's legs?"
"Is it seafood?"
"Yeah."
"Then no!"
I was sick of this stupid shit and it wasn't getting any better, thanks to our coordinator denying anyone access to the side dishes (fruit salad, another fruit salad, Swedish meatballs, Swedish meatballs in gravy, potatoes, potatoes in cheese) until some of those crawfish had been eaten.
Then it happened: the kid, this fat kid in a Junior Football League shirt decides it would be funny to put the thorax (if you remember that as an insect term, good for you: the crayfish is an insect) on his finger. This sort of behavior seemed asinine to me when I was his age, younger, even. My parents would also have known better than to have let me be so obstreperous. Instead, the shit shows his grandmother, who swoons and takes a picture.
Encouraged, despite my snide remark about a rule I remember hearing about playing with your food, Little Shit decides to go for five on his fingers. He succeeds, but starts complaining about how cold it is, as the pickled monsters are not heated, but served from frozen, being precooked. The salt water drips down his arm, prompting him to fashion a napkin wrist band.
His father says nothing, his grandparents continue to beam with pride at the child brandishing their collective failure to rear a human being deserving of air. The obvious happens: 10! With some help, Little Shit gets 10 thoraxes on his chubby little digits. Pictures are taken, and I continue eating my fruit salad, the only thing available without massive fat, making it unlike Little Shit.
Eventually, I mention to one of my friends at the table that I went to Yorkwood High School, which prompts a response from Farmer Shit. Apparently, he went there, decades ago. The best conversation I had at dinner beyond the cost of visiting Sweden (ranking that 1 of 2) was about a high school I hated and doesn't even exist anymore. People around here are so interesting.
After dinner, I start helping clean up a little. I help very little, in fact, because I was duped into this awful experience and I knew how to look busy, thanks to a lot of time working in food service.
It is around this time I discover my friends, the ones who invited me here, have left. I hunt one down and discover they have gone to the dance party, leaving me behind because I should have had the ESP to know that's how these things went.
When I get to the party, it sounds like Lawrence Welk. It is at this point the evening got tolerable.
-Black Ranger (will eat things with faces, once they're removed)
