Not Exactly What I Had in Mind by Roy Blount Read Free Book Online Page B

circles and then falling flat, rooting on the floor for a while, and then getting up to run in tiny circles some more — all the time engaging in an unengaging form of wordplay: “Blinkle blinkle blittle blar, blow I blunder blut you blare.”
    “Mind if I smoke?” asks the man.
    “Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m actually allergic to smoke,” says the woman civilly. “I suppose I could go over by the window.”
    The man does not say he is allergic to the woman’s small child. He says, “Wouldn’t hear of it. I’ll go over by the window.”
    Actually, of course, there is no openable window in the airport. But neither party acknowledges this fact, lest they begin to scream.
    “Well,” says the woman, “I hate to inconvenience you. As a matter of fact little Janie and I need to stretch our legs, don’t we Janie?”
    “Bletch our blegs, bletch our blegs.”
    “Tell you what. I’ll have a smoke while you’re gone and when you get back I’ll teach little Janie how to whistle.”
    Is that so hard? Okay, okay. Is it impossible?
    What if graciousness became a widespread habit? It would offset a lot of smoke in the atmosphere. There are more powerful carcinogens around than cigarette smoke, and self-righteousness may well be one of them.
    Then too, umbrage is as fierce an addiction as smoking. So let me address the user and the bluenose who get wind of each other:
    Eschew tense snappiness, which is bad for the blood pressure. Welcome the chance to blow off steam, not snidely but with eloquence and gesticulation. Hand-waving and a brisk flow of words help clear the air. They also provide some of the satisfactions of smoking. And you never know when Ted Koppel will happen by and invite you both to go on “Nightline.”

Can Brunswick Stew Be Upscaled?
    I AM THE FIRST to admit that Brunswick stew, which I think the world of, lacks the mystique of chili. I don’t admit for one minute that the Southwest has any notion of real barbecue, but I will admit freely that those folks out there have generated more mystique around their chili than Southeasterners like me have around Brunswick stew.
    You never read about Brunswick stew-offs, where people compete to put the finest, hottest, most natural, and hairiest (figuratively speaking) ingredients together into the most definitive bowl of mushy, tangy, reddish-brown-with-yaller-specks stuff.
    This is partly because, what kind of hat would you wear to a Brunswick stew-off? And partly because Brunswick Stewoff sounds like the son of an Anglophiliac movie agent.
    “Chili” is a sexier term than “Brunswick stew.” If you doubt it, try saying “chili-chili-chili-chili- hoo -pah!” in a bouncy, finger-popping kind of tone and then try the same thing with “Brunswick-stew-Brunswick-stew-ick …” I don’t think you will get as far as the hoo-pah . No one enjoys setting out toward a hoo-pah and bogging down.
    On the other hand a long slow rolling “Bruuuuu uhn -z-wick stoooo” has resonance. So if the Brunswick stew industry (should there be one) were to hire the right public-relations firm, and change the name slightly so that someone could throw in a lot of extra hot sauce and market Third-Degree Burns wick Stew, it would probably become commonplace within the next few years to find out that your daughter is rooming with a former stew princess at some fancy college.
    But I would hate to see Brunswick stew blown out of proportion. I think that’s what has happened to chili, frankly. Chili to me is like peaches: even out of a can it’s not bad. In fact that’s the only way I ever had it until I was twenty-three years old. That’s why you have to make a mystique of chili, to justify not eating it out of a can.
    Whereas Brunswick stew isn’t put out by Hormel; it just crops up, at barbecues and in barbecue places. No one knows what is in it. It may be a by-product of the hickory-smoking process — resulting when small animals running somewhere with ears of corn in their