Monthly Archives: February 2011

The Bruschetta Conversation

Posted on February 21, 2011 | 11 Comments

Photo courtesy of SummerTomato's photostream on Flickr

Every time I have ordered bruschetta in a restaurant or café – every single time in my entire life – I have had basically the exact same conversation with the waiter or waitress that served me.

It usually goes a bit like this:

Waitress: Hi, what can I get you today?
Me: Hi there. Can we please have two iced teas and… um, let’s see. I think we’ll share some broosketta too. Thanks!
Waitress: Blank look.
Me: Blank look.
Waitress: Sorry, what was the last thing?
Me: The broosketta, please.
Waitress: Sorry?
Me: Broosketta?
Waitress: Sorry, I didn’t quite… Holds up menu for me to point at.
Me: Pointing. The broosketta. Just there.
Waitress: Loudly, with barely contained laughter. OHHHHHHHH. You mean the BROOSHETTA!
Me: Silent, impotent rage. Um… yeah.

But this is how it would go if this were an alternate universe in which I wasn’t irrationally afraid of making waitresses dislike me:

Waitress: Hi, what can I get you today?
Me: Hi there. Can we please have two iced teas and… um, let’s see. I think we’ll share some broosketta too. Thanks!
Waitress: Blank look.
Me: Blank look.
Waitress: Sorry, what was the last thing?
Me: The broosketta, please.
Waitress: Sorry?
Me: Broosketta?
Waitress: Sorry, I didn’t quite… Holds up menu for me to point at.
Me: Pointing. The broosketta. Just there.
Waitress: Loudly, with barely contained laughter. OHHHHHHHH. You mean the BROOSHETTA!
Me: Rising slowly from seat. No. No, I don’t mean ‘brooshetta’. I mean ‘broosketta’. You know why? Because it is YOU, feeble human child, who is pronouncing bruschetta incorrectly – not I, as your patronisingly instructive tone suggests. And maybe – just maybe – if you’re going to work in an ITALIAN restaurant, and serve ITALIAN dishes, and read out the ITALIAN specials, perhaps it would interest you to know that in the Italian language, the letters CH are pronounced as a HARD FUCKING CONSONANT, YOU SMUG PIECE OF SHIT.

Other oppressed diners in restaurant applaud. Music swells. Close up on me looking triumphant and a bit crazy.

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Posted in My Life

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The Lucky Ones

Posted on February 6, 2011 | 2 Comments

When the fear of failure grips me, when I’m paralysed by the prospect of a mediocre life in which none of my imagined achievements manifest, when I’m reminded of my own mortality and suddenly aware of the fleeting nature of life, when I can’t convince myself of any fairytale ethereal world beyond the real and only one we have, I think of these words:

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

I’ve found this, the opening paragraph of Richard Dawkins’ Unweaving the Rainbow, to be a source of unspeakable comfort and inspiration since the first day I read it. These are the words I want spoken at my funeral when I die, and they’re the words I try to carry around with me while I live. They bring a lump to my throat. They make me want to go further, see more, do better. They make me grateful that I showed up at all. They make me want to shake hands with everyone I see, congratulate them on just being here. Well done everyone, we made it.

Image courtesy of mcdlttx‘s photostream on Flickr.

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Posted in Made of Awesome

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