Spaghetti or not, here I come

Spaghetti is a funny food. It’s the best of foods and the worst of foods. Or so it seems.

[Note: I’m using “spaghetti” to mean spaghetti noodles with tomato based sauce smothered on top.]

Spaghetti is Italian, which automatically sounds luxurious. It’s served at fancy restaurants. It’s served with bread sticks and salad. It’s sometimes served with meatballs. Sounds like a meal that can’t go wrong.

Then it hits you. On your face. You go to wipe it off and realize the annoyance.

Spaghetti is too messy. It slops on white shirts. It slinks into sucking mouths. And it twirls around a fork like a ballerina around a hippo. Awkward.

As a general rule, avoid spaghetti meals for first dates, first company meetings, or really first meals of any kind. That’s a general rule I made up.

Avoid spaghetti, my foot. We need spaghetti. We need small chaos, if only to prepare us for normal (i.e. massive) chaos. Maybe we should serve spaghetti on purpose to see how people react under pressure. Maybe spaghetti… just for yucks (and I do mean “yucks”).

Here’s another rule I made up:

“One’s ability to cope with chaos is directly proportional to one’s willingness to serve spaghetti.”

That one’s more accurate I think.

So if you decide on a less controversial meal, I’ll appreciate your thoughtfulness. But if you opt for spaghetti… oh, yeah.