CAUTION: THIS STORY IS NOT FOR THE WEAK OF HEART OR STOMACH
Then again, my judgement of a gruesome story may be far different than yours, but don't say that I didn't warn you beforehand.
I know I claimed in my last post that I would from now on be reserving this blog solely for my culturally enlightening excursions; however, earlier this week I had an experience that was far too gag-triggering and laugh-inducing not to share. On Sunday, my lovely roommate Chloé and I were enjoying a lovely lunch with our mamita after spending the morning at our Spanish ward. We usually get home around 2:00 and eat shortly after arriving, much to the delight of our ever present appetites that are even more exaggerated after listening, reading, and speaking in scriptural Spanish for the last three hours. Yes, scriptural Spanish is much harder than Spanish spoken on a daily basis; just think about the elevated and complex language used in the English translations of the Bible and the Book of Mormon and add in a language barrier.
That being said, I was ravenously hungry as was Chloé and had never been more grateful for such a lovely home-cooked meal. Chicken, green beans, potatoes, ice cold water, a fresh baguette, and fruit for dessert awaited us as we took our separate seats at the dining room table. The chicken was grilled flawlessly and filled with some sort of delicious cheese, melted to a consistency that suspended its existence somewhere between liquid and solid. I inhaled contentedly as I took my first few bites of chicken, thinking that nothing on earth could possibly dampen my mood. It was in that moment that I saw it.
It, as fate would have it, was nothing other than a long, thick strand of dark hair. At first glance I supposed that it was merely a small mishap that had fallen onto my plate before it had been served to me, but I was sorely mistaken. As I grabbed one end of this intrusive accumulation of dead skin cells, my second piece of chicken began to move as well. This mechón de pelo had in fact been baked inside my second piece of chicken. The following seconds that it took me to remove said strand of hair from my second piece of chicken seemed as never-ending as the length of the hair I was extracting. Somewhere in this lapse of time, Chloé happened to look over and, quickly noting my predicament, tried her best not to choke on her food in an attempt to suppress her disgust and, more than anything, laughter. Our eyes met for a moment, and we silently acknowledged that we could no longer make eye contact for the rest of the meal in fear of bursting into laughter and having to explain an already awkward situation in Spanish.
I quickly moved on to my green beans and potatoes, all the while racking my brain for the best plan of action. I knew that not touching the remainder of my chicken for the rest of the meal was not an option, because in the Spanish culture (as well as many other cultures), it is assumed that if you do not eat all of your food or at least eat most of it, you must not like it at all. Rather than risking upsetting my loving host mother and having to explain the situation, I returned to the scene of the crime and began to simply eat the other side of my chicken, opposite of where I had encountered the unwanted and unwelcome strand of hair. I left a small enough amount of my chicken left that Blanca did not see that anything was out of the ordinary and proceeded to eat my dessert, still unwilling to acknowledge what had just taken place.
As soon as we had excused ourselves from the table and returned to our room to take our siestas, Chloé and I immediately broke into a fit of laughter, finally able to allow our initial reactions to this strand of hair emerge. As some of you may have noted, Chloé promptly dedicated a Facebook status to my achievement of continuing to eat portions of the chicken after I found the surprise within, which triggered a variety of reactions from our other friends in the group. However, the main accomplishment I can take away from this experience is this: I have finally found my poker face!
No comments:
Post a Comment