The Frustration of Chopsticks.

Tonight I appeared to confirm my descent into that mental nether region to which only fictional characters like Renfield are normally confined (because nobody would believe it if it actually happened.) I entertained the briefest notion that one day a Chinese woman of comely aspect (naturally) would invite me to dinner.

Thrilling as the prospect appeared on initial consideration, a sense of rising panic soon set in as a clear impediment presented itself. I haven’t a clue how to hold chopsticks.

‘Nil desperandum,’ I proclaimed inwardly (because nobody was listening save the house elemental which occasionally does odd things in the middle of the night.) You have a computer, your computer permits free access to Google, and Google is the fount of all knowledge. I Googled How to hold chopsticks, and in only a matter of minutes I learned the treasured art. And then I forgot it again a similar number of minutes later. But no matter. In the course of my search I discovered a few questions which are occasionally asked on the subject of chopsticks. They included:

Is it rude to stick chopsticks in rice?

Does eating with chopsticks help lose weight?

How do you break apart wooden chopsticks?

What can you not do with chopsticks in Japan?

I derived much amusement from perusing the oddness of these questions because they’re quite absurd and I nearly always find absurdities highly amusing. And the winner was undoubtedly the last of them. Contemplating the question: what can you not do with chopsticks? opens up a whole field of comic speculation, but when you add …in Japan, the comic landscape becomes positively panoramic. The problem is that I can’t think of anything funny to say about it. That’s the frustrating bit.

I think I’m definitely slipping. I suppose I’d better decline the lady's invitation on the grounds that I’m vegetarian, and maybe I’d better learn the Mandarin for ‘sorry’ and hope it spares me the terrifying wrath of a scorned Chinese woman (and also that she doesn't come from Hong Kong where they mostly speak Cantonese.)