Katherine has just made gazpacho, the soup you don’t blow on.
She says “Do you like gazpacho?”
I reply “Well…”
Katherine says “Well what?”
Hesitantly, I venture “Um…”
She says “Are you afraid that if you say no, you’ll hurt my feelings and I won’t like you anymore?”
Holding my breath, I nod.
“Are you nodding yes, meaning you like gazpacho or yes you’re afraid I won’t like you anymore if you don’t?”
Once again I find myself at the corner of Um and Well. There’s always a blinking “Do Not Walk” sign and I keep pressing the button hoping it will say “Run away, run away.” It never does.
In cases like this you need to mantra up and imagine a calm, beautiful place where the sun is shining and everyone is nice to banjo players and the soup is the kind you have to blow on or you will burn your tongue.
To get to those calm and beautiful places I have a card with my secret mantra word—Om. Next to it I have written “rhymes with Jerome,” so that I don’t mispronounce it and wander accidentally into somebody else’s mantra field.
While reciting “Om” I try to become one with whatever needs one at the moment. I call this process “Oming in.” But the only “Oming in” sense I can find for a soup that doesn’t get hot is that someone needed to cover up a mistake.
Imagine a home in a small Spanish village where Senora Gazpacho has just made a pot of cream of tomato soup. From the bedroom Senor Gazpacho hollers out “Where did you hide my bullfighter pants?”
Senora Gazpacho sighs. “Did you look in the dresser drawer, el torero?” He hollers “Of course I looked in the dresser drawer. Why do you always hide things just when I need them?”
To herself she says “If I were going to hide something, it would be him.” In the bedroom as Senor Gazpacho stands pantless, a foot tapping impatiently, she searches under the bed, the dirty clothes basket and the closet. Finally, she checks the dresser.
“Oh look,” she says. “Nice, clean bullfighter pants. Right next to your Batman jammies.” To which Senor Gazpacho responds meekly “Oh. That dresser.”
Back in the kitchen, Senora Gazpacho serves Senor Gazpacho a bowl of soup. He blows on it, tastes it and blurts “It’s cold.”
“Of course it’s cold,” says Senora Gazpacho. “I just invented it. Everyone else does hot soup. I do cold soup so I can spend more time looking for lost trousers.” Senor Gazpacho decides that since he is wearing his lost pants and will not look like a fool at the bullring, he likes it.
Meanwhile, in the here and now, Katherine sets a bowl of gazpacho in front of me. It takes every bit of willpower and double-Oming not to blow it by blowing on it. Even so, it’s still cold soup.
©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013, all rights reserved.
For years I told jokes on street corners for tips, dreaming of one day owning a granite counter top. No luck, so I entered a monastery. I now do stand-up at daily prayer services. The monks' vow of silence means they can't laugh. I can't even laugh, although sometimes I sob quietly in the can. This blog is a cry for help. Send money or granite. I accept Pay Pal.
a hint of light 
Pat, the more of your blogs I read, the more I regret that I haven’t been in touch over the years that you went from a serious undergraduate to a humorist who deserves to sit at the right hand of, well……….don’t want to get heretical here.
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Thanks for the thought, Dennis. As I recall you were the editor of The Laurel at BV. And I wrote some things for you. Or am I drifting?
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Pat, being in Stage 4 senescence, I know the feeling of drifting. I have let the word “Laurel” roll around from tongue to ear (takes a long tongue to perform that little trick but it’s what makes drooling so much fun) and buried beneath a drift of snow in Western New York I did find something. It appears to be under the heavy guard of an army of trolls and I’ve been unable to examine it further. I did hear one of them mutter “damned McGuire.” Is that you?
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Why, yes. Damned WAS my nickname. How nice of you to remember.
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But did you LIKE it? or was the fact it was cold too much of a turn off?
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To my fellow poster named impopeyethesailorman. Did you really use the term SERIOUS UNDERGRADUATE in describing Patrick. My oh my how the memory fades with the passing years. Let us just leave out the term serious. Thank you very much.
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I’m sure Pat had his moments. Like last call at the Burton.
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Seriously, I was an undergraduate at one time.
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You are a brave man… trying new things. I think it’s a mind thing……soup isn’t supposed to be cold…when I tried shark, I had a similar experience…..who else am I eating? Of course I didn’t have the oming thing going…..Roseanne:)
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The correct approach – actually withdrawal – is to claim a kidney imploded, and quickly leave, what may soon become, the scene of a crime. 😀
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