Moby Dick and Lemon Drop Martinis

Dinner w/DOB and TCG at fancy sci-fi place decorated like the bridge of the Enterprise, lots of gauze curtains with gold thread. Wine, who wants wine with dinner? Give me a raspberry lemon drop vodka martini, and give me some bread and butter, and make it fast.

DOB: mutter mutter, mutter.

TCG: We can’t hear you. You’ll have to speak up.

DOB: MUTTER MUTTER. MUTTER.

UCC: That’s better. Thanks.

WISIMH: Hurry up with the martini, Brittney.

TCG: (To Brittney, as she hands UCC her martini) I could take you away from this: dinner, a movie, a weekend in Acapulco.

Brittney: (To UCC) Does he always do this? Hit on the waitress?

UCC: Yeah. Why do you think I wanted the martini so urgently? I’ll take another martini, please. (To TCG) Best waitress reply, ever.

WISIMH: Have I ever mentioned I hate when you hit on women when I’m sitting next to you? Oh yeah, only about a zillion times. You dick.

DOB: What do I want for dinner? I’m not really that hungry. I want spaghetti and meatballs.

TCG: They have macaroni and cheese.

DOB: I’m not really that hungry, mutter mutter….

UCC: (Reading menu) How about chicken parmigian? You can get a side of macaroni and cheese.

DOB: Ok, but as you probably know, I will have completely forgotten this by the time Brittney comes back with the bread and butter, so you’ll have to remember, and when she asks me what I want, I’ll look at you completely mystified and that will be your signal to order for me.

OK, she didn’t really say that. What she actually said was lost in the spittle and dribble, as she daintily sipped her pink wine, and stared in hella surprise at the bread and butter that had magically appeared out of nowhere. Let’s see now, whose diarrhea shall we talk about first….

TCG: How’s Sandy?

DOB: He’s a good boy. I just tell him I’m going to the store, and he goes to his bed and lays down to wait for me to come home.

WISIMH: Ahhhh, THE scintillating dinner conversational topic. It’s not like we haven’t covered this ground a million times either. Why does my life totally feel like Groundhog Day?

UCC: What do you think about the symbolism for homosexuality in Moby Dick? Does the very book’s title suggest a phallic preoccupation, do you think?

Brittney: Here’s you (second) martini. And no, I don’t think the title foreshadows the many men-on-men relationships. I think it refers more to Ahab’s fatal obsession, and how there’s a tipping point where the classic heroic flaw, e.g. Achilles’ heel, overtakes a man’s soul and he goes over to the dark side.

Busboy: (removing my first empty martini glass) Actually, I think it’s an allegory about the conflict between good and evil, with a bit of an oral fixation involving Ahab’s pipe that might suggest either fellatio, or a dependence on tobacco to face the ugly reality of a one-legged whaling ship captain’s life. In my Master’s thesis, I focused on Melville’s treatment of race and class, and concluded that the author wasn’t a fan of racism.

TCG: (To Brittney) You’re working very hard. Here’s my 25% off coupon, but be assured, your tip will be based on the pre-discount value of the meal.

Brittney: Oh, be still my beating heart. What a good man you are. Your wife must be so lucky to have you.

Ok, I made up most of the above conversation. I maintain that the world inside my head is often more interesting, lively, stimulating, and funny than the stuff that happens in the actual world, even after two raspberry lemon drop martinis and a glass of pinot noir. I also admit I haven’t read Moby Dick since high school, although I’ve been halfway through re-reading it since, approximately 2002, but I can’t seem to overcome the inertia to get back to it.