The Rites of Passages

It's an age old question, how one eats, but I have taken the time to break this mystery down in the present volume. I want to approach this very simplistically, although libraries of scholasticism devoted to culinary academia have already been written on the present subject. That is not my goal here. I want this subject to be available to the Everyman, to the blue-collar middle class, to the fairly illiterate. My approach is going to be very simple and straight forward. How to Eat - it may sound overwhelming and complex. But after reading this short volume, I guarantee you that you will not only understand, but you will be eating. In no time!!

Let's start with step one. Open mouth. Go ahead, give it a try. Don't feel ashamed, even if you are reading this in a public setting. Open it up like you would at the doctor's when he/she sticks that flat wooden stick on your tongue. Go ahead. Try it. Maybe even say "aaaaah," as a verbal helpsake. Or maybe pretend like you are yawning really really big. YAWN. Maybe that will help. Or if those don't work, pry your hands into your mouth and forcibly stretch your jaw away from your skull. Did you do it? Good. Now we are really close to eating. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Step two is almost as fun as step one.

It is still an extremely common problem for people to confuse thinking for deciding and vice versa. For example, a person sitting down for a meal at the local pizza eatery may voice to her companion in consumption how terribly hungry she is. The two then peruse their menus. She flits from item to item reading in depth but never truly thinking about the item in context of eating it. Rather, she bounces from emotional tangents: 'I will never be able to cook items as tasty as these', 'I need to be working out more than I am', 'i like/dislike the color scheme they have chosen for this menu/table/napkin/curtain'. While this is certainly thinking (albeit problematic in its lack of direction and prioritizing), it is very far from deciding. Nevertheless, upon being asked by the waitstaff for her order, she replies,"I am still deciding." And that is how my wife inspired me to decide to publish the third edition.

"Can we keep him? Can we keep him?" I knew it was only a matter of time before I heard my son ask me that question again. It had been almost four months since Johnny was at the front door holding a brown cat in his arms (a one-eyed cat) begging for us to keep him. I buckled under the question and Johnny later named that one-eyed cat Macaroon who had since been present in every family photo taken.

But now Johnny stood, bent over and scratching behind the ears of a yellow, well, more black because of the oil and filth, mutt. Unlike Macaroon, this animal had both eyes. It was missing a leg though. I couldn't bare the sight. Between the three-limbed dog and the glassy eyes of Johnny I caved. "Of course you can keep him."

Johnny named him Nong out of his insistance that the mutt looked like Egg Nog, which of course Johnny always mispronounced as Egg Nong. "Merry Christmas mom," he would say, "Can we have some Egg Nong now?" And like clockwork his mother would try to correct him, "Johnny, it's Nog, not Nong!" And like a digital watch, Johnny would come back with the usual, "That's what I said - Nong." Round and round they would go.

After a two hour bath, the three-limbed mutt joined the one-eyed cat as our household pets. And with Johnny turning 30 this year, there was no telling what was going to happen.