After two weeks of school, I’m cutting classes, shirking assignments, cramming for tests, and riding the diurnal crests and troughs of beer and caffeine like any self-indulgent undergraduate. All of the vows I solemnly undertook (e.g., “I vow to take my education seriously”) have already fallen by the wayside.
Which is not to say my time has been completely misspent. For example, I have rediscovered an enjoyable weekend tradition I like to call “drinking eighteen cups of coffee at brunch and spending the next several hours gnawing the edge of the table and twitching spasmodically while massive electrical storms rage across my frontal cortex.”
During these spells, I tend to fixate. Two weekends ago, I became obsessed with the idea of opening a Mexican restaurant called “The Dirty Mustache.” Eventually deciding that, despite the undeniable cachet of this name, it was perhaps not the appropriate banner under which to sell fresh, authentic Mexican food, I jettisoned the restaurant idea and sought alternative uses for this powerful catchphrase. A chess gambit? A superhero? Supervillain? Naval stratagem? Line of soy-based meat substitutes?
This past weekend, I spent an hour trying to convince one of my breakfast companions to ask the waitress for “cornhole pancakes with extra cho-cho sauce.” This was, as far as I was concerned, the most hilarious phrase ever molded by the lips of man.
Complex negotiations ensued. She was willing to order the pancakes with cho-cho sauce, but I had to pay for her breakfast. I was willing to pay for breakfast, but she had to put real feeling into the performance: “Yeah, I was wondering, how are your cornhole pancakes? Can I get extra cho-cho sauce, but on the side?”
Talks eventually broke down. My companion undermined confidence in her thespian abilities by repeatedly referring to the fictive menu item as “corn rows with joe-joe.” I downgraded my offer to a free Bloody Mary. No deal was struck. Which really is just as well.
