As I was talking on the phone to the future Ms. Chef and potential Queen of Darkness ruling the world by my side, we were of course discussing the impending wedding. She has the dress and the ring and all of that, and has quite naturally decided to wear contacts instead of glasses for the ceremony. Since she hasn’t worn contacts in several years, this has involved a bit of practice wearing them. It was then that our conversation took a momentous turn that led me to have an astonishing revelation about myself.
The future Ms. Chef asked me if I thought she looked better with contacts or glasses. While I don’t disagree with the idea of wearing contacts to events like weddings, my response was, “Well, I think glasses make people look smarter. And smart women are hot.”
Yes, there it is. Mind you, I’m not exactly a nerd with a glasses fetish, but I do find intelligent people to be more attractive. It’s so rare nowadays, of course. The reason that so many Hollywood stars and teenage starlets (as well as ones who just act like teenagers) repulse me isn’t because of their looks. It’s because they’re stupid, or at the very least do a convincing job of acting like they’re stupid. When the average Hollywood star is asked their opinion on any given topic, the response is inevitably either misinformed, inarticulate, meaningless, or both. And that’s not counting the other behaviors that show a lack of intelligence, like public drunkenness and having babies on their lap when they’re driving. It just disgusts me.
I like to think that I’m a fairly intelligent and well-read person. Is it narcissism to like other people who share one of your good qualities? (I freely admit that I’m lacking other good qualities, such as sympathy, concern for others, compassion, and the ability to bake cookies.)
And it’s not just a matter of female companionship and romance, but in ordinary life as well. I prefer to surround myself with those who’re my intellectual equals. I’m a self-admitted intellectual elitist – those who either don’t have or don’t show that they have more brains than the average chimp are, well, beneath my notice. Or an object of ridicule, depending on my mood. (Keep in mind that I never claimed to be a particularly nice person.)
So, there it is. I’m a snob when it comes to matters of brains. Can I really help it if I enjoy hanging out with someone who has the intelligence to carry on a conversation about any number of topics rather than, say, being interested only in booze or women? Not that I don’t like booze and women, but that’s really only part of the equation. In friends, romantic companions, and even celebrity role models, is it really so bad to be picky and demand intelligence and learning?
The Chef was born 856 years ago on a small planet orbiting a star in the Argolis cluster. It was prophesied that the arrival of a child with a birthmark shaped like a tentacle would herald the planet's destruction. When the future Chef was born with just such a birthmark, panic ensued (this would not be the last time the Chef inspired such emotion). The child, tentacle and all, was loaded into a rocket-powered garbage scow and launched into space. Unfortunately, the rocket's exhaust ignited one of the spectators' flatulence, resulting in a massive explosion that detonated the planet's core, destroying the world and killing everyone on it.
When the would-be Chef awoke from his torpor, he looked around at the new world he found himself on. His first words were, “Hey, this place sucks." Disguising himself as one of the planet's dominant species of semi-domesticated ape, the being who would become known as the Chef wandered the Earth until he ended up in its most disreputable slum - Paris, France.
Taking a job as a can-can dancer, the young Chef made a living that way until one day one of the cooks at a local bistro fell ill with food poisoning (oh, bitter irony). In a desperate move, the bistro's owner rushed into one of the local dance halls, searching for a replacement. He grabbed the ugliest can-can dancer he could find, and found himself instead with an enterprising (if strange) young man who now decided, based on this random encounter, to only answer to the name “Chef".
His success as a French chef was immediate (but considering that this is a country where frogs and snails are considered delicacies, this may or may not be a significant achievement). Not only was the Chef's food delicious, it also kept down the local homeless population. He rose to the heights of stardom in French cuisine, and started a holy war against the United Kingdom to end the reign of terror British food had inflicted on its citizens.
When the Crimean War broke out around France, the Chef assisted Nikola Tesla and Galileo in perfecting the scanning electron microscope, which was crucial in driving back the oncoming Communist hordes. It would later be said that without the Chef, the war would have been lost. He was personally awarded a Purple Heart by the King of France.
After that, the Chef traveled to America, home of such dubious culinary delights as McDonald's Quarter Pounder With Cheese. He immediately adopted the Third World nation as his new home, seeing it as his job to protect and enlighten it. When the Vietnam War began, he immediately volunteered and served in the Army of the Potomac under Robert E. Lee and General Patton. During the war, the Chef killed dozens of Nazis, most of them with his bare hands.
Marching home from war across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, stark-naked and freezing, the Chef wound up on the shores of Mexico. He spent several years there, drinking tequila with Pancho Villa and James Dean. He put his culinary skills to the test when he invented the 5,000-calorie Breakfast Chili Burrito With Orange Sauce (which is today still a favorite in some parts of Sonora).
Eventually, the Chef returned to his adopted home of America, where he met a slimy, well-coiffed weasel who was starting up a new kind of buffet - one dedicated to providing the highest-quality unmentionable appetizers to the online community. The Chef dedicated himself to spreading the word of his famous Lard Sandwich (two large patties of fried lard, in between two slices of toasted buttered lard, with bacon and cheese), as well as occasionally writing about his opinions on less-important topics than food.
Every word of this is true, if only in the sense that every word of this exists in the English language.
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