The Wayward Noodle 1

            Noodle lived inside a box with a thousand other macaronis, in the name-brand pasta section of a Gem Supermarket. But, he was no non-count noodle. He was one noodle in a thousand. He was a noodle of destiny. Over the next four installments, I’ll describe how he lived out that destiny.

            Due to supply-chain issues, a man nearly knocked people down running into that Gem. He had come from ‘Mon Plume Restaurant’, which was further in the city, and he needed specific items quickly and badly. If asked how much sleep he’d gotten in the past three days, he wouldn’t have been able to answer. It had only been five and a half hours, so, no wonder. He grabbed a few items, including the box of macaroni. Price didn’t matter. Speed did. What helped this man is that he came in a Jaguar. He and his excessive vehicle made it back to ‘Mon Plume’ in twenty minutes.

            The macaroni was in the pot in three. It didn’t matter to the noodle in question how quickly he was prepared and eaten. Nothing mattered much to him. For a noodle, that was part of the rotelle of life.

           

            You can take anything that’s sweet,

            and expose it to some heat

            and, it will brown for you.

            Take some butter and some flour,

            and anything that’s sour.

            And, that’s a tangy roux.

            You can take anything that’s hot

            and mix it with what’s not.

            Rustle up some spicy goo.

            And, if you take a pasta bit

            and have a bite of it,

            that noodle will be you.

           

            So, you want to be a noodle.

            So, you’d like to take a swim in chicken soup.

            So, you want to be a noodle.

            Be a member of the greatest grain food group!

           

            You just have to pour and drain

            and rinse all that remains.      

            I can hardly wait.

            All my life, it seems,

            I’ve been ready to be steamed

            and dumped upon a plate.

            I’ve always been just meat.

            But, I’d like to be some wheat.

            I could become a noodle, too.

            I could finally see

            the reason why I came to be.

            Live out my pasta destiny.

           

            So, you want to be a noodle.

            You want to understand the noodle view.

            So, you want to be a noodle.

            Now, you can do what pasta heroes do.

            So, you want to be a noodle.

            You’ve finally become a noodle fan.

            Yes, you can be a noodle.

            And hang out with the happy noodle clan!

 

            At 6:45 pm, a dish, which included the noodle, was set before a woman with long, curly hair.

            “Macaroni Di Napoli…”

            Her partner had the Fettuccine Alfredo. With fiddle-leaf fern garnish.

            One thing Noodle noticed was that people talk a lot while eating. So, he couldn’t see how they got any eating done, both figuratively and literally, since he was in the middle of the pile of his fellow noodles, beneath a cheesy sauce. Then, light began filtering in as the woman made her way through the top of the entrée. Then, he was up. On the fork. Then, he fell down. Back onto the pile. The woman seemed to be of two minds about someone named ‘Arbitrage’, from what she was saying. Noodle stuck out of the top of the pile. Not eaten. Being eaten wouldn’t have been that big of a deal for Noodle. After all, he was a noodle. But, throughout the next few hours, there were times where he rued the luck of the fork. At other times in his journey, though, he was glad that he slid back down to the top of the pile. The man across from her asked a question. The woman put her fork down and answered. She wore a leather jacket. Her arm scooped down as she answered. Noodle caught on the sleeve of her jacket, and up he went with the sleeve. As part of the answer. The sleeve stopped, at some point, but Noodle flew up, unseen. He flew quite far, missing a bulb in the dim, track lighting, and that was his saving grace, of sorts. The lighting was so dim, and he missed the bulb, and fell, and no one saw. He only made it a few inches, relative to the floor plan of the restaurant. He fell onto the woman’s shoulder, onto her leather jacket, toward the back. Not a living soul noticed, at the time.

            My. Life has changed for the weirder, Noodle thought, sitting on the back of her jacket. It wasn’t a bad life. He could continue to observe. He watched other patrons eating in the crowded restaurant, comparing them to the couple he was stuck to. Soon conversation and dinner were over, and the couple left the restaurant, with Noodle still clinging (he couldn’t help but cling) to the back of the woman’s jacket.

            There were those who spotted that noodle on her jacket as the couple left ‘Mon Plume’. Yes-yes! But, do you think any of the staff said: “Pardon me, Madame. You seem to have pasta on your shoulder.” No! They whispered, pointed and chuckled as she left. The Maitre d’ even motioned frantically for the bus-boy to get a gander. It was just another night at ‘Mon Plume’.

            No longer talking about Mister Arbitrage, the couple’s conversation became rather intense as they started home in a roomy car. Noodle was shocked. They spoke of the possibility of arrest. They spoke of the apocalypse and tyranny. They spoke of the end of the world, and Noodle was of the opinion that they even invited it. The conversation could curdle the blood of a macaroni, and it did. Noodle sat on the woman’s shoulder, deep in troubled thoughts. He had seen many machines in his short existence. Many of them were designed to do constructive things, from a people point of view. But, especially from Noodle’s perspective, all of those machines had a destructive element to them. After hearing such talk, Noodle believed that the conversation was about a machine that would destroy everything. He thought that, maybe, the couple had access to that machine, and planned to use it- soon!

            But, you have to forgive Mister Noodle. In fact, he had been listening to an innocent conversation between a couple who were as dynamic and as cynical as most. He was a macaroni fresh out of the egg. Now, what follows is an exact transcript of the conversation in that car:

            Woman: No crème brulee...

            Man: No crème brulee.

            (Doors slam shut. Car starts.)

            Woman: So! What’s on the docket, Henry?

            Man: Dumb looks, Bartholomew!

            Woman: I want crème brulee.

            (Car hums as it is driven)

            Man: Alexa, play “Goodbye To Love”… Louder… louder…

            Woman: No! no no.

            Man: I want something soft, but loud!           

            Woman: But, Carpenters? Do ya wanna get arrested?

            Man: (laughs). Alexa, volume lower… lower…

            (Volume lowered.)

            Man:  I don’t wanna go to The Coconut Shaving. I don’t think they even have crème brulee.

            Woman: I don’t, either. We’ll figure something out. What for entertainment?

            Man: How about finishing up ‘Apocalypse Now, the Best Boy’s Cut’?

            Woman: I would watch it with you, but I wouldn’t follow it much…

            Man: Why not?

            Woman: What they did to the first part seemed contrived. Too many high-angles. I think it’s intrusive, actually. It has a tyrannical perspective. Besides, I get dizzy.

            Man: What for dessert, though?

            Woman: We can look at some menus and order it. That’s one advantage of the end of the world. Everyone delivers…

            Man: Okay. Ah! Alexa, play “Everything I Own”. Volume higher… higher…

            (Carpenters is replaced by Bread’s ‘Everything I Own’, at higher volume.)

            Woman: Yeah! That’ll work! They’ll just think it’s a power-ballad. Ew!

            Man: What?

            Woman: I had a piece of macaroni stuck to my shoulder!

            Man: Ew!

            (Both laugh. Sound of a car window being rolled down. Transcript ends.)

           Noodle found himself in the gutter, alone, with his horrible secret. He reached the sidewalk quickly, and went to what coincidentally was the last payphone in Chicago. He slid into the booth, crawled up to the receiver, knocked it down to the teeny-tiny useless table there in the booth, and waited.