Sometimes I feel like a
sucker in a strange land.
I was going to stay away from a completely negative rant, but as Aesop's scorpion says, "I'm a scorpion," so rejoice,
fellow sociopaths!
Part of being a scorpion involves spending the majority of my college life eating my way around the world and spending daddy's
all sorts of money in foreign lands. The fact that I was doing this, instead of "learning" or "acquiring skills", is supported by a mountain of questionable photographs and my laughable current job as a
faux-Australian servant-girl.
To compensate for my lack of (useful) education and marketable (legal) job skills, I have experiences. Priceless experiences that led to some wisdom I'd like to share with you now: do not eat any "typical meals" that your hosts prepare for you.
"Typical meals" are great if you've landed somewhere like Tuscany or Paris, but if you're anything like me, then you're a dipshit liberal-arts major and you've decided that "No! The way is to travel the exotic
third world, with its strange 'third' spices and 'third' peoples and 'third' currency exchange rates."
Aside: anyone else notice that "third" sounds like "turd"?
In the exotic third world, "typical meals" are chock-full of exotic bacteria, erratically-refrigerated ingredients, and crippling dysentery.
BEEN THERE.
I am fully aware of the sketchy nature of third-world refrigeration. I've walked the quaint, earthy marketplaces. I've seen the sun and the rain and the smog beat down on llama heads, guess-the-animal ribs, and goat scrotums. I've seen a strange pink fluid wiggle its way through a pile of potatoes "displayed" on a dirt floor. Uphill.
It makes for pretty pictures, but if they'd had common sense (imagination?) they'd know an American stomach isn't accustomed to that sh*t.
Why would they serve me llama gasbag soup!?
Worse yet: Every time I was presented with a new gastronomic adventure, my hosts would delight in making me eat it. I was guilted into it by
their exotic third world smiles.
Some of these dishes even sound made-up. Guinea pig? Really!?
Really.
I've come to believe that these exotic third world natives are either completely daffy, or it's all some sort of vast, passive-aggressive class war conspiracy. I immediately took ill after finding meat with fur stuck to it and a strange honey-combed bit of matter in that afternoon's stew. I carried that illness all the way home, and I could still hear their exotic third world laughter.
Now, after careful consideration and multiple degrees in anthropology and world literature, I have finally decided what I think of the third world:
I want revenge.
See plan, below.
The next time someone visits me from some hideous third world rat-hole like Nicaragua, Bolivia, or Detroit, I'm going to serve up a typical 'Murican First World meal. Something heinous, like
wet burger sliders with slimy onions and tongue-bubbling hot wings ... and I am going to make. Them. Eat. It.
I will make them eat it because it is truth, justice, and the American Way, and because those bastards have it coming.
