rat kings
fried clams and tortilla soup, the breakfast of champions. and at this hour, it would probably be categorized as breakfast. gyro melt and fries, your untouched plate-warmer. and by the time you get around to eating it, it’s going to be cold. this is of no concern to you, apparently. you’ve never been one to eat breakfast anyway. though if we’re being fair, this is only the second meal either of us has had since we woke up, which makes it lunch. though if we’re being fair, we probably woke up around the time most people make lunch. brunch is another story. you eat a disproportionate amount of brunch. a good eggs benedict is worth at least five bowls of this soup. this place doesn’t have good eggs benedict. they don’t have good anything. you’re still talking, but i haven’t been listening. i’ve been staring at the picture on the wall just behind your head, a photograph of sophia loren giving jayne mansfield’s bosom the side eye. imagine having cleavage so notably obscene that it is memorialized on the wall of a crappy diner like this one, right up there next to a promotional photograph of the keystone cops and the movie poster for 'find the blackmailer'. do restaurants set out to be tacky like this, or do they just become tacky? you’ve noticed. sorry, i was staring at someone staring at someone else’s tits, what did you say? you’re talking about rat kings, how all of the rats get knotted together by their tails and they’re trapped in a enormous heap of rats. what on earth could you have possibly been talking about that lead to this? were you discussing the finer points of knots, or perhaps the phenomenon of putting your neatly-bundled headphones into your pocket, only to have them spontaneously and irreversibly tangle two seconds later? was this a discussion about rats, or about ships full of rats, or about the time your cat caught a rat and released it into the house? a discussion about situations best characterized as “a heap of tangled rats”? a discussion of personal space and the discomforts that come with its loss? or perhaps this can simply be explained as a discussion of contortionists. i’m not listening again. i’m staring across the restaurant at the back of our waiter’s head, trying to telepathically communicate my need for a beverage refill. lemonade, please, and can i have a plastic cup whose rim isn’t mangled with scuffs and pits? i know my mouth isn’t actually coming in contact with the cup, but it’s still weirding me out. and why is this straw so long? wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy shorter straws that actually fit the plastic cups? i’ve been chewing on the end of this absurdly long red straw, and it too is getting mangled. you’ve noticed. sorry, i was contemplating the cost of straws, what did you say?