If there’s one thing at which I excel, it’s finding new and inventive ways to firmly lodge one or the other foot in my perpetually open mouth. And in almost every instance, it turns out that I should have known better. This morning, after a brisk 45 minutes on the recumbent bike at the Y, in which I am reasonably certain I burned through enough calories to vaporize a seven course meal, I decided to reward myself at Barnes and Noble with something satisfyingly saturated with large amounts of fat and sugar (while balancing it out with a guilt-free bottled water). So I ambled to the counter and ordered a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup cookie and a Fiji water, and presented my B&N member card for my 10% discount, and figured that I had covered all my bases…but in 2014 service industry, there’s always one more question. Someone always wants your email or to know if you’d like that wet or dry or with soy milk or if you’d also like to donate to MD or MS or PMS or whatever, and today was no exception:
Barista: Would you like that cookie warmed up?
Me: No thank you.
Barista: For here or to go?
Me: Here.
Barista: Do you want a fork with your cookie?
Me: No. It’s a cookie. Who eats cookies with a fork?
Barista: Well, if they’re soft, I do…and I don’t judge.
Which completely cut off my planned riff on how people who eat chicken drumsticks or spareribs with a fork and knife are clearly anti-American pinko terrorists of some kind and should be immediately considered for a internment camp in the Arizona desert. Hey, I know when to shut up and cut my losses.
BW
Kibbitz Corner 
thanks..I needed a really good laugh! Possibly a good response would be: Have a nice day…but that’s another story…..
Ben, I love your blog. Thanks for the laugh and I know I am just an average person but I think your writing style deserves to be in a comments or Freelance column in The New Yorker, Vanityfair and The Arlantic Momthly when more political .
I saw a video of Palin on The Daily Show and maybe if you help me out we can use LOCKTITE from TGE HOME DEPOT on get mouth! What a winey, grating voice besides the derivil that she spews!
Sue, thanks for the kind words. Guys like me can make a living off Sarah Palin alone…she’s a citizen’s nightmare and a comedian’s wet dream.
I briefly considered “Fuck you very much” but thought better of it.
Bah. It’s not wrong, but it is unusual. Who *does* eat cookies with a fork? Very few people, that’s who.
Listen, it’s just that sort of tolerant attitude that has gotten civilization to the sad state it’s in today.
Ooh ooh you should have started a big argument about “normal” vs. “normative” behavior in the context of eating cookies. That would have been *awesome*. (Ah, L’esprit de l’escalier by proxy.)
Yeah, it would be almost as riveting as the time I got into a whole debate with Cory on LRC about the difference between “uninterested” and “disinterested”. (And l’esprit de l’escalier always gives me schadenfreude.)
Also, I eat generally eat pizza with a knife and fork. Does that make me a bad person? Perhaps.
I’m simply too shocked to respond. Put down those implements and stuff some pepperoni in your mouth like a real American.
But I’m *not* a real American. I wasn’t even born here.