Soup is Hard

I got lunch at a local place in Bogota. It was this chicken soup with potatoes and a big piece of corn right in the center, a fork stuck through. I picked it up with the fork and gnawed on it like a pig. But then the fork fell out, and I couldn’t get back in. Should I ask how I should eat this thing? Is that an acceptable thing to do? Is that weird? Are they going to think that I am stupid or something?

So I decided to push the fork back into the corn. It didn’t work. So I did it a bit harder. Frustrated, I aggressively stabbed my fork into the cob, and with a bang, the soup exploded.

Everyone turned.

I stared at the onlookers. “Soup? Am I right?” I said. “It’s so slippery.”

I looked down at my soup-covered clothes. It’s slippery? Who says that?

“Aquí,” a waitress said, holding a towel. She wiped me down like a post-tantrum baby. I could feel everyone’s eyes.

If I had been younger, perhaps still in college, I would have politely excused myself from the meal, paid quietly, and gone back to my room. I would have obsessed over the incident. Spiraled for hours about what other people might be saying about me.

But I’ve grown. I didn’t leave. I sucked the broth off my sleeve. I picked up the corn with my hands, way past the need for forks, gnawing every last kernel off. I’ve found that the more food you have on you, the less likely you are to need utensils.

It turns out no one cares about you, in a freeing way. Not like no one cares if you live or die; your family and friends care deeply about that. But I am talking about the stupid things you say and do. The awkward pauses, putting your foot so far in your mouth it’s a wonder you still manage to speak. I used to obsess over that stuff, convinced everyone else obsessed over it too. But when someone leaves a group, we don’t talk about them. We have much more important things to talk about. Ourselves.

It was embarrassing, but can you imagine if I had asked how to eat soup? Now that would have been ridiculous.