Our Account Director had invited her team to dinner at her Manhattan apartment. As one of the youngest and newest to the team, I was both excited and, of course, nervous. I’d be dining with four layers of management above me.
It’s just talking and eating, I tried telling myself.
But it’s not really just eating, is it? More like the human equivalent of dogs sniffing each other to find out what they’re made of. Literally. Smiling and conversing while eating in a charged atmosphere to make a good impression are key adulting skills, and I was still a fledgling adult.
Never “a good eater,” I’ve always had to feel relaxed and safe to eat. As if some leftover remnant from prehistoric people didn’t get wiped from my DNA: If I detect an upcoming fight-or-flight mode, eating plummets to the absolute bottom of my list. The naïve caveman who closed his eyes to blissfully enjoy the taste of his meal probably didn’t live long enough to pass on his genes, unlike the nervous watchful one, who delayed gratification until she’d confirmed the wolves were at bay.
So I wasn't there to eat, really. I hadn’t been inside many Manhattan apartments, and was curious to see it. Having recently moved from a small town in upstate NY, Webster — which my NYC boyfriend called “Walnut,” underlining its non-significance vs the big city — felt very far away. I was still discovering NYC and the rich diversity it offers.
Our Director had put several tables together to make one long table in the middle of her apartment. She said there was no seating arrangement, so everyone randomly chose a place, and she sat at the head, with about 20 people together at the table. I sat between two people I didn’t know well, and everyone began passing the serving bowls.
My supervisor, a young and well-liked upcoming manager with a big personality, was seated at the other end of the table from me. Calling my name, he said something which would make a lifelong impression:
“Bonnie, pleath path the couthcouth.”
He also had a lisp.
Couscous.
It was an unintelligible sound to me, in spite of the lisp decoding. A word with strange, repeated, cough-like syllables, which in my 20 something years, I’d never previously heard.
Brain, already on high alert, sent out an all-hands alarm:
ALERT! ALERT!
>>MISSION REQUESTED BY SUPERVISOR CONTAINS AN UNKNOWN COMMAND<<
SEACH ALL FILES IMMEDIATELY FOR DEFINITION!
.....SEARCHING COOTHCOOTH..................................
.....SEARCHING COOS-COOS.......................................
.....SEARCHING CUSE-CUSE............................................
...........................................................................................................................................................................
------>file not found<------
IMMEDIATE ACTION ADVISED: ABORT MISSION! ABORT MISSION!
I didn’t make eye contact and pretended not to hear the request, hoping someone more worldly, a better epicurean than I, would pass him the unintelligible cough-cough.
But it didn’t work. No one helped. He repeated the request, this time louder:
“Bonnie, would you pleath path the couth-couth.”
I couldn’t fake not hearing him a second time, while it felt like the entire table awaited my response. And the thing he was requesting, though louder, still made no sense to me.
Studying the several serving bowls on the table in front of me, I took a chance and picked up a random bowl to pass.
Seeing this, he repeated:
“The couthcouth!”
Mercifully, someone else picked up the bowl of cuckoo and sent it his way.
In that moment it felt like waters had parted revealing my naïveté.
And then the conversations at the table resumed, the waters swirled around, and washed over it.
Even with our rough initial meeting, couscous became an unlikely friend. I started making couscous on purpose, initially as a mission of penance for me, and later, to introduce it to my kids. It’s simple and likeable, so as we pass the couscous at dinner, it’s often accompanied by another side dish, laughter, about my uncomfortable introduction to it.
