Thursday, June 15, 2006

Seraph for minister of foreign relations !

I had one of my laughing seizures in the staff room the other day. It was quite a eye-opener for most of the staff in our conversation conclave ( though if you've known me for any great length of time you'll know that these fits of uncontrollable laughing and giggling are pretty regular ).

It has been much remarked on already.

The reason for my mirth ? It all started with one of the staff recounting her experiences with food in her worldly travels. Y'know - all the gross things she's sorta been forced to eat as not to cause huge amounts of dishonour to her hosts. Live baby turtles, dog stew, various forms of locust or grasshopper, even a 'monkey pie' ( hell - isn't that one of the funniest things you've heard ? A MONKEY-pie ? Even the word is freaking great ! If you wanted specifics - apparently it was a 'mostly-baboon-pie'. She didn't really want to know what the other stuff was ).

But that's not what I was laughing at.

I started thinking along these lines - what if that while 'dishonour' thing is a scam ? ( yeah - I KNOW it isn't really ). What if these people were just trying to see what horrible stuff they could get these western tourists to eat. You could imagine these guys heading off to the bookies afterwards - "Hey Achmed ! Those backpackers totally ate that bowl full of fried pig ovaries ! That was, what ? Ten to one odds ? It's time a started getting some money back from you after the whole mashed locust patties ...".

But THAT'S not what I was laughing at.

Logically - after a train of thought like that, you start thinking of payback ( because if there's ONE thing that 'ole Seraph stands for - it's REVENGE ! ). I started to imagine volunteering to host a visiting teacher from one of our sister schools overseas, and seeing what crap I could get away with feeding them on the pretense that it was a "great honour" to be served such a delicacy.

And I was laughing about that for a good long while.

"Oh - you're in for a treat tonight Mr. Chang ! A New Zealand national meal - Lawn-clipping Surprise ! Down in one ! Down in one ! Down in one !"

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