New Voices

In Good Taste a.k.a. Meat thy Neighbors

Upstairs the sound of my mother’s profanity indicated that this was no mere blown fuse, and as I reached the top of the stairs, a reasonably sized explosion-type noise followed by a reasonably sized explosion-type puff of smoke emanated from a house down the street. Now I of course wanted to investigate, but my mother -- who I’m fairly certain has seen an episode of “24” -- was worried that the explosion might be exactly what the terrorists wanted me to do. Fortunately I’ve stopped listening to my mother ever since she bought me a long-sleeved jean shirt (I love you mom).

When I went to see what had happened I found an impromptu neighborhood watch meeting had been called -- the first such meeting since the stickers were put in all of our windows and promptly forgotten, which I imagine happened sometime after our neighborhood was built and before people learned of the modern wonders of the telegraph -- and dumbfounded gawking was the first item on the agenda. Standing there watching my neighbors recount in detail, and then re-recount in more detail each moment leading up to the dramatic discovery of a tree in their road, I realized that for some this would be the high point of their month, and a little part of me died. It became clear that to the participants involved this was the scene in the murder mystery when everyone hears the gunshot and runs into the foyer (and by that I mean fwä'yā' or possibly foi'ā', but certainly not foi'ər) to discover the victim (in this case our power transformer), and as the evidence piled up concordance was reached: in fact a tree had fallen down. To an outsider watching us gather, however, I imagine it would have appeared more like the scene in which the meteorite lands on the farm and all the townsfolk come outside, scratch their Osh-Kosh-Bgosh clad bums and say “yup;” all right before the aliens walk out and zap them all.

Now I live in a “Cul-de-sac”, which is French for “poor design concept,” and unfortunately, this means that as long as that tree blocked the road, we were effectively cut off from civilization. And as we stood there, surveying the damage wreaked not only upon the matter of our streets, but upon the mettle of our very lives, I’d like to think we all knew that if we were going to make it through this together, one eventuality was certain: we would have to feast upon the bodies of our fallen comrades.

The pregnant woman would have to go first. She’s young, but we don’t have a doctor on the block, so chances are the birth might yield the same results. Plus it just wouldn’t be right to bring a child into such a hopeless situation.

Next would be her post-abortable daughter (she was about three). It’s a horrible thing to be orphaned, I mean no one wants to grow up without her parents, and I think we can all agree that it would be better to save her from having to experience any future tragedies.

The older neighbors after that, they’ve already had a full life, and besides, arthritis has already done most of the tenderizing for us.

I’d only nibble on sickies, uggos and fatties, because after all, you are what you eat, and after that, it’s your basic mop up operation, anyone who can’t run, jump or swim fast enough to get away from me (triathletes get a lucky break). And before you say anything, I know what you’re thinking: Of course I wouldn’t cannibalize my own mother, I’m not heartless! God!

My orthodox cousin once told me that a live cat was probably the most unkosher food you could eat. He was 10 at the time, but he’s studying to be a rabbi now, so I’m holding him to it. But you’ll notice he didn’t say anything about humans…

As it turned out, the city sent a truck by and they cleared the offending tree and had the power back on by lunch, and thank goodness everyone was ok. Unfortunately in a fit of panic I’d already eaten my neighbor’s hamster, but I mean, a guy’s gotta snack.

posted by Shlomocles @ 9:50 PM