You will.

I don’t run into many Kurds, and that’s too bad. I had a great time yesterday serving as Sureya’s sous-chef. As we cooked mountains and oceans of food, I increased my knowledge of Kurdistan and its culture by an order of magnitude or two. That wasn’t hard to do, since I knew almost nothing about the subject two days ago. After hours cooking with Sureya, though, I probably know more about eggplant than any of my learned friends.

When we opened our third liter of cooking oil and third bottle of wine, Sureya promoted me from sous-chef to soused chef. And that’s when she told me the names of all the food we were cooking referenced genitalia. (At least I think she said something to that effect; I don’t have a clear recollection of the nuances of the conversation.)

And so I asked the Internet whether “couscous” really translates to “vaginavagina.” It turns out it does; here’s a relevant excerpt from the 25 February 2002 issue of Time magazine.

He [Salah Jamal] also writes of an Algerian visiting Jerusalem who asked for couscous. In colloquial Arabic of the Middle East, unlike the Maghreb nations, cous can mean vagina. The hapless Algerian was asking for two!

“The problem will solve itself,” I assured her.

“Explain,” she demanded.

“When I die, all that will be left will be my written words, which will be intelligible,” I explained.

“That sounds like wishful thinking on your part,” Danielle responded.

I’m afraid she’s right.

That’s not a reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who already is a governor, or, perhaps more accurately, a gropenführer.

I’m thinking of Kinky Friedman, who’s running for governor of Texas. Friedman has a way with words, as is obvious from his songs such as, “They Don’t Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore.”

And that’s why I wasn’t surprised by Friedman’s brilliant campaign slogan, “How Hard Could It Be?”

Kinky for Governor!

“Enjoy your catered holistic vegan lunch,” Jason said with gleeful sincerity.

“Fuck you too,” I replied with gleeful sincerity.

When I arrived, I found a nice, arty salad at my table. So far, so good. Unfortunately, that was as far as it went: the “salad” turned out to be the entire lunch.

I noted that Parducci Vineyards was one of the sponsors of the starvation-diet lunch. Was I offered any of their delightfully vinegary-sweet alcoholic swill? I was not.

Arf.

What the hosts saved on lunch, they may have spent on video projectors, or maybe crack cocaine. Or maybe the people who made the predictably formulaic propaganda twaddle used all the crack. All I remember is that they made some questionable claims. For example, I laughed so hard that salad dressing shot out my nose when a speaker identified one of my perpetually inebriated friends as, “a planetary visionary.”

The program featured lots of crap philosophy such as, “the rainforest people are the condor people, we in the north are the eagle people; we must fly together into a new age.” (Or something like that.)

New age! Of course! I should have known better.

I could go on making snarky juvenile comments, but I won’t. These people may mean well; they just have a different approach to affecting environmental change in the rainforest. Personally, I prefer environmentalists with automatic weapons.

“Man, and I thought I knew vaginas!” he reported. “At first it looked normal, maybe a little wider than usual. But all of a sudden, she opened up just like one of those snakes that unlocks its jaws when it’s about to swallow a rat.”

And that’s how Maximus entered the world, like a regurgitated rat.

I like the adolescent premise, and love Bruce’s description of his and Feldstein’s piece: “Ours is stupid. That’s stupid with three Os.”

“I stole it from Charles Gatewood’s opening tonight,” I replied.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean that I stole it from Charles Gatewood’s opening tonight,” I explained.

“How can you steal a bottle of wine from a friend?” Maureen demanded.

“It was easy,” I continued, “I just stuck it in my shoulder bag when no one was looking.”

“I bet you didn’t ask him if you could have it, did you?” Maureen said accusingly.

I went on to explain to Maureen that it’s not stealing if you get permission, and that Charles doesn’t drink. And anyway, Charles was busy chatting up a beautiful woman. In fact, I bet he’ll thank me for not interrupting him when he reads this. At least he won’t ask me to buy him a bottle of wine; that’s one of the many reasons I love my sober friends.