My_Tapeworm's_Name_Is_Fang
---
Whenever people ask me where I put my food, I simply tell them, 'Into the future.'
This makes both philosophical and metabolical sense. As a skinny-ass, excitable whiteboy, I burn through calories before they even get to my duodenum. I once had a roommate in the Bronx: a 270-lb., Argentine/Italian brown belt in judo named Big Daddy Lou. We went out to dinner with my parents once, and we battled for serving-supremecy. I won, with six.
So it's out of financial necessity that I have a love of buffets. In London, it was the Thai vegetarian joints, with an infinite stock of fresh broccoli and sauteed mushrooms. In New York, it was a school cafeteria with a cast of friendly Haitians who turned out kicking risottos. In Seattle, it was an Indian/Pakistani curry place, with lines around the block every lunch hour.
Here in Germany, it is the Chinese buffets.
I'm on my way to Poland for work, so conserving money is of the utmost priority. Housing is not a concern, because I am staying in the attic storage room of a man who went to school (for urban design) with one of the 9/11 hijackers. The important thing is, it's free. Vices are not a drain, because I don't drink or smoke. The two primary concerns are simple: food, and books.
I need both, or I will starve.
So for the former, I have found a lovely little restaurant not a far walk away, for six euros. For my one meal of the day, this is perfectly acceptable. My hunger expands like a crocodile to fit its environment, and I have the cheeks of a gerbil to boot. As I stumble in with a bag of books on my back, I probably look like a hobo squirrel preparing to hibernate. In a library.
For three days, I arrive to tuck in for a seven-course meal of canned fruit, greasy duck, and questionable noodles. I am not Homer Simpson, and my body-mass-index is not the stuff of horror films. So the owners welcome me as a new, regular customer, and with open arms.
It is on the fourth day, of course - my next to last in this city - that their arms cross.
My German is passable, although rusty, so I listen a lot. So what occurs next has the direct, makeshift tone of two people - both in the business of feeding somebody, even if only themselves - communicating in a language that is foreign to both of them.
"I need to speak with you," he says.
"Go ahead," I say.
He steadies himself. I don't think he's ever done this before.
"Listen. You come here, for three days. You eat every day. Now look..."
He waves over to the food-strewn table which has been my savior all this week.
'You pay six euros. The fruit, that is three euros. The chicken, two euros. The noodles, two euros. I send one euro back to my country. Feeding people is my business. But feeding you..."
"..."
"That is not my business."
"..."
"..."
"I leave tomorrow."
-
Getting kicked out of a buffet restaurant is one of my proudest moments. It's like breaking a shoe dancing (which I've also done): it is proof that you have taken one of hobbyhorses of daily existence, and ridden it straight into the ground. It is a testament that I am still alive.
I know that my hunger will eventually come back to bite me in the ass. As time goes on, I'll stop riding bikes up steep hills. I won't go out dancing as much as I used to, and always should. And so my metabolism will start to slow, creeking along like a Soviet-bloc railroad, until it finally comes to a halt - a dead end. In my modest queen-size deathbed, I will emit a death rattle that sounds like a broken dinner bell and smells of fruit yogurt and home fries.
And at that terminal moment, everything I've ever consumed will come rushing back to me en masse: the strawberry smoothies, the pad thais, the cheese omelettes, the banana nut muffins, the fried rice, the knishes, the injera bread, and the mountains upon mountains of fresh fruit.
And I will explode, my body ballooning out like a deleted scene from The Blob, my rolls of newfound flab cascading like a burst dam through the doorway of my retirement home, drowning wayward puppies in its wake and knocking out power for blocks around. Car alarms will blare, and the zoos will be filled with panicked pachyderms. And after a minute or so - the time frame for most natural disasters - the fleshly mountain will settle, and go quiet.
Only then, will I finally be full.
Whenever people ask me where I put my food, I simply tell them, 'Into the future.'
This makes both philosophical and metabolical sense. As a skinny-ass, excitable whiteboy, I burn through calories before they even get to my duodenum. I once had a roommate in the Bronx: a 270-lb., Argentine/Italian brown belt in judo named Big Daddy Lou. We went out to dinner with my parents once, and we battled for serving-supremecy. I won, with six.
So it's out of financial necessity that I have a love of buffets. In London, it was the Thai vegetarian joints, with an infinite stock of fresh broccoli and sauteed mushrooms. In New York, it was a school cafeteria with a cast of friendly Haitians who turned out kicking risottos. In Seattle, it was an Indian/Pakistani curry place, with lines around the block every lunch hour.
Here in Germany, it is the Chinese buffets.
I'm on my way to Poland for work, so conserving money is of the utmost priority. Housing is not a concern, because I am staying in the attic storage room of a man who went to school (for urban design) with one of the 9/11 hijackers. The important thing is, it's free. Vices are not a drain, because I don't drink or smoke. The two primary concerns are simple: food, and books.
I need both, or I will starve.
So for the former, I have found a lovely little restaurant not a far walk away, for six euros. For my one meal of the day, this is perfectly acceptable. My hunger expands like a crocodile to fit its environment, and I have the cheeks of a gerbil to boot. As I stumble in with a bag of books on my back, I probably look like a hobo squirrel preparing to hibernate. In a library.
For three days, I arrive to tuck in for a seven-course meal of canned fruit, greasy duck, and questionable noodles. I am not Homer Simpson, and my body-mass-index is not the stuff of horror films. So the owners welcome me as a new, regular customer, and with open arms.
It is on the fourth day, of course - my next to last in this city - that their arms cross.
My German is passable, although rusty, so I listen a lot. So what occurs next has the direct, makeshift tone of two people - both in the business of feeding somebody, even if only themselves - communicating in a language that is foreign to both of them.
"I need to speak with you," he says.
"Go ahead," I say.
He steadies himself. I don't think he's ever done this before.
"Listen. You come here, for three days. You eat every day. Now look..."
He waves over to the food-strewn table which has been my savior all this week.
'You pay six euros. The fruit, that is three euros. The chicken, two euros. The noodles, two euros. I send one euro back to my country. Feeding people is my business. But feeding you..."
"..."
"That is not my business."
"..."
"..."
"I leave tomorrow."
-
Getting kicked out of a buffet restaurant is one of my proudest moments. It's like breaking a shoe dancing (which I've also done): it is proof that you have taken one of hobbyhorses of daily existence, and ridden it straight into the ground. It is a testament that I am still alive.
I know that my hunger will eventually come back to bite me in the ass. As time goes on, I'll stop riding bikes up steep hills. I won't go out dancing as much as I used to, and always should. And so my metabolism will start to slow, creeking along like a Soviet-bloc railroad, until it finally comes to a halt - a dead end. In my modest queen-size deathbed, I will emit a death rattle that sounds like a broken dinner bell and smells of fruit yogurt and home fries.
And at that terminal moment, everything I've ever consumed will come rushing back to me en masse: the strawberry smoothies, the pad thais, the cheese omelettes, the banana nut muffins, the fried rice, the knishes, the injera bread, and the mountains upon mountains of fresh fruit.
And I will explode, my body ballooning out like a deleted scene from The Blob, my rolls of newfound flab cascading like a burst dam through the doorway of my retirement home, drowning wayward puppies in its wake and knocking out power for blocks around. Car alarms will blare, and the zoos will be filled with panicked pachyderms. And after a minute or so - the time frame for most natural disasters - the fleshly mountain will settle, and go quiet.
Only then, will I finally be full.