Breakfast with Glenn and Steve - Once More with Feeling

The booths in The Good Egg are lacquered hard wood without cushions or covers.  The tabletops are Formica edged with brushed metal.  Plastic salt and pepper shakers flank a bowl of creamers and a small, rectangular plastic container with disheveled white, yellow, pink and blue packets of sweeteners sits on every table.  The walls are dotted with watercolor seascapes featuring lighthouses or ships under sail.  Three friends occupy a booth near the back.  They consider their menus as their fresh coffee cools in large ceramic mugs.

“I’m thinking starting my own religion,” I said.

“Really?” Glenn asked in a tone that indicated a total lack of interest. He scanned his menu, “Have they dropped the seasonal fruit cup?”

“That or a Super PAC,” I continued.

“Interesting,” Glenn replied in an apparent attempt at irony.

“Are you even listening to me?” I asked Glenn.

“Of course. Religion vs. Super PAC,” he said. “Discuss.”

Putting down his menu Steve asked, “Did either of you catch the specials on the way in?”

“Asparagus, tomato, Kalamata olives and goat cheese omelet,” Glenn said.

“Asparagus? Again?” Steve complained, making a face as he shuddered almost imperceptibly.

“Hey, do you see the seasonal fruit cup anywhere on the menu?” Glenn asked.

“There’s a melon bowl,” Steve said. “It is September, after all.”

“That would explain the apple pancake special,” Glenn said.

“Apple pancakes? Why didn’t you say so?” Steve said.

“He just wanted to see you make your asparagus face,” I said.

“My asparagus face?” Steve said, reflexively making the asparagus face when he said asparagus.

We were quiet for a moment and then Glenn said, “Asparagus.”

Steve’s face tightened up.

“Was it a childhood thing?” I asked.

“Asparagus,” Glenn said again.

Color rose from Steve’s neck up to his ears and cheeks. His arms and shoulders seemed to tighten.

Sensing that we might be one ‘asparagus’ away from telling the police that Steve was a good man, a quiet man, a neighbor who never failed to keep his yard neatly trimmed, I said, “Those apple pancakes do sound good.”

As if on cue, the waitress arrived. I felt compelled to order the apple pancakes and did so. With a side of bacon, of course.

“I’m going to have an omelet,” Glenn began, Steve glaring at him.

“Did you see the special?” the waitress asked.

“Yes but I think I’ll go with mushrooms and Swiss cheese. And a side of home fries. Do you still have the seasonal fruit cup?”

“No, we just have the assorted melon bowl now. It’s September, you know?”

“I heard that somewhere,” Glenn answered. “I’ll pass on the melon but I do have a question. Since it’s September, which apparently impacts the availability of grapes, bananas, pineapple and strawberries, why do we still have asparagus on the menu? It’s a spring vegetable, after all.”

Our waitress paused for a moment, perhaps considering the metaphysics of her profession, perhaps musing on the lack of both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in her daily labors. Was she a people person? Had she grander aspirations as a young girl? A princess, a doctor, a movie star cast away on a desert island with a handsome scientist? “I guess that’s what makes it special. Any other questions on agricultural futures I can help you out with?”

“Uh, no,” Glenn answered, handing over his menu.

Steve ordered the apple pancakes with a side of sausage links. The waitress promised more coffee and left with our order.

“So,” Glenn said to me. “Starting your own religion or starting a Super PAC?”

“This really doesn’t sound like you,” Steve said.

“In what way?” I asked.

“Well, in the way that either of these endeavors will require commitment and hard work,” Steve said.

“True, I am already losing interest,” I said.

“Religions are generally started by ascetics, con men or science fiction authors,” Glenn observed. “I can’t see you wandering in the wilderness, eating bugs and shivering through the night after failing to make a fire. And you’re a horrible liar. Maybe you should try your hand at science fiction.”

“Well, I do have a lot of details to work out with the BMOR thing.”

“BMOR?” Steve asked.

“Bring My Own Religion,” I answered. “Anecdotally, I would observe that I need to come up with a supreme being, an origin story, a moral framework of sin and redemption, good and evil, a salvation hook, an afterlife scenario, something suitably Armageddony. Mostly, something that will generate tax exempt donations.”

“Well, I can see why you’re trying to figure out if this is a religion or a Super PAC,” Glenn observed.

The waitress returned with coffee. “The chef says the asparagus is from Peru.”

Steve flinched. Glenn thanked the waitress for the origin story of the omelet special.

“I say ditch the religion and the Super PAC but write science fiction novels that feature lots of sex with Amazonian alien women. No wait, alien girl on alien girl action. That, my friend, will sell,” Glenn observed.

“I think you should write a science fiction novel where bikini-clad coeds on spring break save the planet from an alien invasion of giant sentient asparagus,” Glenn said.

“Despite Steve’s irrational fear, I don’t see how I can make vegetables the enemy, even a vegetable as far out of the mainstream as asparagus,” I said.

“What if instead of alien asparagus they were vampire asparagus?” Glenn asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think the site of giant asparagus running around on tiny green legs would be more laughable than frightening. I like the bikini-clad coeds on spring break angle, though.”

Our food arrived. As she set out our plates our waitress encouraged us to include lots of young men in speedos to cover the female demographic. I nodded and thanked her knowing full well the target audience for any spring break-set sci-fi flick featuring vampire vegetables would clearly target sedentary males aged 14-25; the fewer good-looking men with six-pack abs the better. Well, I’d need at least one. The handsome and popular but cruelly blond boyfriend who dies in some cowardly way – he would leave his beautiful bikini-clad girlfriend at risk, with only our nerdy zoologist hero left to protect her and run headlong to his blood-curdlingly satisfying rape and exsanguination as our hero squirts lemon juice into the eyes of the giant vampire asparagus, momentarily rendering it helpless, then spraying it with hot butter which leads the fat kids from the nearby fat camp to leap upon the giant vampire asparagus and devour it.

“I should have the blond boyfriend make fun of the fat kids in Act I,” I said out loud.

“What?” Steve asked.

I explained what I’d been thinking and Glenn said, “It practically writes itself.”

“The good stuff always does,” Steve said.