The Contortionist's Soufflé

Or: Waiter, There's a Clown in My Closet

This is not Phyllis

I was perched on a barstool sipping champagne and fingering a cheese straw when I asked Phyllis if she needed any help with dinner. The elegant, silver-haired nonagenarian gently swiveled her head back and forth as though to look both ways across the short span of her tiny kitchenette, then looked straight at me, which caused me to feel like a lazy Cub Scout half-heartedly offering to help an old woman across the street.

“This kitchen’s only big enough for one. Anyway, we’re not having anything fancy, just cheese soufflé”. The woman neither wanted nor needed my help. It amused me to have a regular restaurant guest of mine serving me dinner. I think it amused her, too.

I took another sip of wine and told her that cheese soufflé sounded like a fancy dinner to me because it actually did sound like a fancy dinner to me.

“Michael, soufflés are the easiest things in the world,” she said as though she was repeating herself for the fortieth time, “People just think they’re fancy.”