THE DINNER AND EDGAR ALLAN POE

I received this thank-you note after a dinner party I threw recently.  I feel that, if creative, and probably the truth, it is unnecessarily harsh.

 

THE DINNER  (with apologies to Edgar Allan Poe)

Once upon an evening nauseous, over hors d’oeuvres, weak and cautious,

Wondering if I should continue to eat or toss them on the floor.

While deciding, enter Carson, toting cocktails fit for arson,

Because to drink them would bring my acid reflux to the fore.

’Tis not nice to drink a drink and bring my reflux to the fore.

Shook my head and ate some more.

 How clearly I remember this dinner party in September,

And each separate groaning member lined outside the bathroom door.

Eagerly I wished to borrow Pepto Bismol;—to my sorrow

They were fresh out—I feared the morrow—

The amuse bouche wasn’t funny and my stomach let me know

Casualty of rancid roe.

 

And the copper clad slow cooker, huffing, puffing like a hooker

Scared me—the soup course followed cocktails, so I headed for the door.

“Oh, hey, you can’t be going,” Carson hollered, looked all-knowing,

“I’m just about to serve the soup.” Sweat broke upon my brow.

Seven dreadful words were spoken that caused sweat upon my brow.

“Be right there.” Lord, kill me now.

 

Hesitating then no longer, wishing that my will were stronger,

I shuffled back into the room where everyone was green.

“This soup is so delicious!”  No, ’tis closer to ‘malicious,’

Or perhaps more like ‘pernicious.’ At the very least, it’s ‘mean.’

I dislike eating anything that makes me think of ‘mean.’

Pass the dreaded soup tureen.

 

Ladled soup into my soup plate, understood I tempted a fate

Worse than maiming, death, and dying—inhumanity to man.

Because Carson’s making dinner we will all become lots thinner

If we don’t end up in ICU with a volume discount plan.

Yes, if we’re not on Medicare, then a volume discount plan.

Carson’s cooking should be banned.

 

Swallowing the horrid soup, the wet and mildew-tasting goop—

My life, it flashed before me.  Unfortunately, it bored me.

Soon again I heard the bathroom, it was calling out my name.

I rushed to sanctuary, second course no longer tarried,

But swirled down the porcelain drain—glad to see it flow.

Two courses down and three to go.

 

My salad course was waiting, all the diners cogitating

About advisability of eating something more.

Two were dead and more would follow, it was like a horror novel.

Salad dumped in napkins, wrapped, and placed upon the floor.

Delighted hostess, from the kitchen, cries, “I bet you all are itchin’

To try my newest recipe, pan-seared cellar door.

 

On the side we have potatoes, oven-roasted in tomatoes,

With basil, cream, and sealing wax I purchased at the store.

There’s some lovely summer squashes, stuffed with cat hair and galoshes,

And for dessert, there’s homemade apple pie—you’ll need much stronger knives."

I never thought that apple pie required stronger knives.

We ran then, fearing for our lives.

 

Carson’s kitchen now is shut down, health department had a go-round

And condemned that ptomaine palace for an evil place forsook.

As for Carson, she is mulling over recipes and lulling

Herself into the fantasy that she knows just how to cook.

Forget the affidavit that she knows just how to cook, or you’ll

Be dying in her breakfast nook.