The other day I
was having lunch with Joe ("I heal sick minds") the psychologist and he caught
me talking to my ketchup.
What I mean by
this is that Joe saw me take the ketchup bottle in my hand, look it right in
the eye, and say, "Buddy, you and I are gonna happen together." Then I whacked
it a few times on its side and eventually its thick tomatoey goodness poured
into a glob next to my fries. You've all seen that. You know what a beautiful
sight rich, red ketchup next to a pile of fries is. And I was excited.
Now, I realize I
shouldn't have done this in front of a mental health professional. Because Joe,
in his smoothest, most comforting psychologist's voice, said, "You know, people
who read your writing have no idea how f---ed up you really are."
But am I? Am I
f---ed up? Who's to say what's f---ed up and what's not?
I happen to talk
to some objects. When I'm very hungry, I talk to food. I've talked to burgers,
cheese, onions, celery sticks, pickles, baked potatoes, bread, assorted
condiments, and many other comestibles. My purpose in doing this is to make a
meal fully interactive; to make the things I'm going to eat feel like they're
part of a process, which after all, they are. I'm going to eat them, and
they're going into my stomach. We're working together to reach a common goal:
to feed me.
I do this with
drinks as well. On Friday nights at Happy Hour I say to my Miller Lite, "Hello,
my good man. I'm going to drink you now" and give it a pat on its head. This
isn't so uncommon. You've seen people communing with their drinks in bars. A
lot of them are drunkenly staring into their drinks and thinking,
"You're . . . the only friend I got." Me, I don't talk to drinks
when I'm all sentimental and mawkish. I'm positive and upbeat with drinks.
Before you say,
"You're out of your goddam mind." wait a minute. I don't believe these things
necessarily understand what I'm
saying to them. What I'm doing is creating an event, a ritual, like they do in
Far Eastern countries. These items I'm about to eat are going to help me.
They're going to make me feel good. Why shouldn't I give them every
consideration? Why shouldn't I treat them nice?
How do I know
that when I die and go someplace in the afterlife, food items aren't going to
be running the show? You say, "Food items aren't going to be running the show."
You gonna bet your afterlife on that? Not me. The afterlife is pretty damn
eternal to be taking chances. If I get to the afterlife, and discover that say,
a big potato is in charge-I admit I'd be surprised by this-I want that potato
to say to me. "You treated all my brothers and sisters down there on earth with
love and respect before you ate them. Now I will give you every consideration you gave them."
That's why I
talk to animals, too. Of course I talk to the cat Dizzy, but I talk to dogs,
squirrels, pigeons, crows, chipmunks, and everything else I see. Most of the
remarks I make to animals are of the teasing variety, but a good-natured
teasing. When I see a squirrel digging around on somebody's lawn, I yell, "I'll
knock you on your buns!" It's real friendly stuff. They know I'm horsing around
with them. They know I'm like Daniel Boone, only without a musket. And both my
wife and I yell at squirrels when we see them venture out onto tree lawns and
too close to the street, frightening them to scamper back to safety. If the
afterlife is ruled by a kingdom of squirrels, I'm going to be covered.
Psychologists
don't know everything.
|
Quirkee Voices 
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