Tuesday, July 27, 2010

alert hollywood--gazpacho is the magic formula

it's saturday morning. i'm driving the boss's truck over the 59th street bridge. it'll be 105 degrees with the heat index (whatever that means) by afternoon, but for now, with the windows open and the river breeze funneling through the cab, life is good.

the boss slurps really delicious gazpacho from a large, uncovered to-go cup. i change lanes.

a loud noise crinkles up from behind us and after mental checks ruling out the kayaks coming un-roped from the roof (would be MUCH louder), i remember the boss's two-foot square original drawing inked on very thin tracing paper stashed behind my seat. one of those drawings that could possibly sell for six grand. except it's no longer stashed behind my seat, it's floating free in the air, about to crinkle it's way out the open windows to float appropriately, down to the east river.

of course, this all happens in a millisecond, and my hands are still on the steering wheel. fear not, though--the boss's hands are instinctively and immediately grabbing the drawing. the cup of gazpacho is abandoned to the air, to settle pell mell, roly poly, with more surface area than you'd imagine, on my overalls, the seat, my bag, my hands, my face.

the drawing is safe, and the boss has made a breakthrough discovery: "wow! gazpacho really looks like puke!" maybe i shouldn't put that in quotes, cause i can't remember--he might have said 'barf'. definitely not 'vomit', though 'vomitron' would have been quite poetic. whatever the semantics, the outcome was the same--the appearance that i hadn't actually spent my friday night working till midnight then falling into bed, but rather drinking, say, eleven shots of jaegermeister, a few beers and a gutter of vomitron.

and yes, to give the boss credit, there were many apologies, but much more laughter and absolute wonder at the striking visual similarity between spilled gazpacho and spilled guts. we made a note for future video projects, and might just have to work some in for the genius of it all.

2 comments:

kim said...

That is hilarious. I guess the right decision was made considering the cost of the drawing vs. the cost to the overalls.

kim said...

One of my coworkers was eating/drinking gazpacho during a meeting yesterday, and all I could think about was your blog post and how I shouldn't mention the "magic formula" to him while he was enjoying his cold soup. I held back and was proud.