A Superfluous Skill

“Oh, silly me. I almost forgot to ask. How would you two fancy some entertainment tonight? It comes at no extra expense, either of money or of energy.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Replica was scowling at me.

“Basically, it’s free and the performer comes right to your table.”

“Oh?” Don perked up. Whether it was his built-in entertainer sense tingling or the fact he’d reached the end of the handkerchief rope he was pulling out his sleeve I couldn’t say. “Who’s the performer going to be?”

“Yours truly.”

“Oh, well in that case, heck yeah!” / “Oh, well in that case, buzz off!”

Don and Replica answered in unison.

Well. Uh. Near unison.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I told them, forcing a smile. I just about had to take it that way, I figured. If I took it as anything else, the plan wasn’t even gonna pass pre-flight, let alone make it off the ground. I looked back to make sure Fence was still in position — he was — and flashed him a thumbs up, which he returned.

“Ugh. Fine. Just get this over with and leave us alone,” Replica said, scowl deepening.

Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. If all goes to plan, “alone” is exactly how I’ll be leaving you... and you alone.

“Prepare yourselves, the both of you,” I announced with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. “You haven’t seen anything like this. Probably. Well, not recently, I’d bet. And if you have, just forget about it for a minute so that my amazing and amusing ‘hand water fountain’ might, er, amaze and amuse you, or something!”

More crickets.

Damn. Maybe I hadn’t been giving Don enough credit. If this was how he had to entertain… whoever he entertained on the daily — hordes of crying kids at birthday parties, or something like that — then he had his work cut out for him.

Speaking of work though, I had to wonder: why the heck was Don working as a health inspector — or pre-inspector, whatever — anyway? The guy was filthy stinking rich and set to inherit one of the biggest and most lucrative businesses in the literal world. Why do nasty work like this on the side for pennies?

Oh well, I thought. Not like it really mattered. I had bigger and more immediate problems to overcome. Like how in a single instant I was about to break dozens of the sanitation regulations we as a restaurant had only just begun following. About to do something that any typical health inspector would likely shut us down on the spot without a second thought for. Luckily, Don was no typical health inspector. He was a health inspector who played by his own rules.

I dipped both my hands into the soup.

See? This is why I said I needed them at the exact right ratio of hand lubrication, perfect homeostasis. It was all crucial to my plan.

I removed my drenched hands, sticky with tomato base, enriched educational noodle product, and 600% the daily recommended amount of sodium. Then, I clasped them together with a spine-shivering squelching sound.

Well, spine-shivering for me. Don just lit up like a lightbulb, smiling wide.

“Now, err, watch as the liquid jumps magically from my hands into your mouths.”

“Oh, Jesus,” said Replica, fingers rubbing at her temples. As if she was the one getting a headache from this whole ordeal. Spare me. “I knew it. This is, like, your only real skill.”

I nearly told her to shut up, but caught myself at the last second. My attempts to out-comeback my sister have always been more pitiful than funny, so I didn’t think Don would appreciate that sort of thing. Instead, I simply let liquid fly. With a quick press, one palm against the other, I sent a single squirt of the soup sailing out from between my palms and straight into Don’s gaping mouth. Apparently he’d caught on and was ready and waiting to receive the appetizer.

“Haha!” he said, catching the first drop easily and slurping it back. “That’s really funny! Do it again!”

“That’s the plan.”

Once again I dipped my hands. I was already operating on pure muscle memory. Sad as it is to admit, Replica was right: this was actually my only special skill: shooting small squirts of liquid out of my hands by pressing them together. Well, that and finding myself at the epicenter of some of the stupidest situations possible, I guess. The eye of a hurricane of stupidity.

Replica’s eye twitched. It was bright red — bloodshot. No, wait, not bloodshot, I realized: soupshot. The barrier that was supposed to be blocking her from my soup shower — supposed to be feeding Don his appetizer plus a heaping helping of laugh-out-loud comedy while making sure Replica stayed safely out of soup’s way, in other words — was nowhere to be seen.

Crap! Fence! What the heck are you doing, man?! You were supposed to be in position, blocking Replica off from the soup spray!

I whisper-yelled his name and luckily caught his attention. He was still just standing there like a lump over by the kitchen. I gritted my teeth and jerked my head towards the table, hoping it would send the message I wanted it to, that being: “What the literal [REDACTED] are you [REDACTED] doing?!?!?! Get over here right [REDACTED] now!!!!”

“O-Oh, sorry,” he stammered. “Were we supposed to go on three, or after three…?”

“There was no countdown, you ignoramus! The signal was me dunking my hands in the soup! Get over here now!”

Well, he at least tried to make up for his mistake. Fence broke into a dash, cleared half the restaurant floor in half a second flat, and practically flung himself onto the table. He landed prone, looking like he was trying to recreate that old planking fad, before flipping onto his side to shield Replica from the soup squirts. He got soup all over his shirt, broke two plates, and narrowly avoided a skewering by a steak knife, but hey. He could walk it off.

For Don’s part, he didn’t seem to care — or even notice — at all. He was too occupied bobbing his head around with his mouth agape catching half-licks of soup to worry about anything else.

Meanwhile, Fence was busy too. Busy ruining the plan again. He twisted further onto his side, Romance the rose clenched between his teeth by the stem. “Hey, babe,” he said to my sister, “Going anywhere tonight?”

And then he winked. I could’ve smacked him upside the head. Not because he had picked now of all times to clumsily hit on my sister, but because if Replica saw him injured, she might take pity on him and not give him whatever she had coming for him.

Because whatever she had coming for him would be much, much worse.

I could practically see the veins popping out on her forehead. “No. But my fist might be if you don’t get off the table in two seconds!”

“Sorry, no can do. It’s our job as waiters to serve up the most delectable delicacies the restaurant has on offer. Hence…” He motioned broadly with a sweeping hand gesture to his entire out-of-shape, skinnyfat body.

And that was when Replica lost it.

In the interest of keeping things PG, I’ll leave what she actually did to the poor guy to your imagination.

To be continued!