Don't sneeze on the food

I once met someone with an outstandingly unique sense of smell. He could smell a smuggler swallowing sacks of hash in the medina of Chef-chauan Morroco from his VW in Van Nuys. He could smell bow resin residue on the hallucinating retinas of a relapsing exchange student practicing her violin in Vienna. He could smell burnt eyelashes on an ex-rocking, re-located Brit fourteen blocks away and..., ten Miller Light bottles down the bar, he could smell an aspiring actress menstruating into white-tailed cotton.

(... needless to say..., his ability to smell dirty money landed him a job designing ventriloquist dummies for entertainment caterers at various financial advisor-thrown parties, and his inability to keep his mouth shut regarding his nasal capabilities got him a fat lip and a few tampon-tinted teeth from a drunk "extra" who went on to play "princess" in a couple of Paramount productions...)

But, anyway...

He's not the only one around to have such an extraordinary "sense" that physically drives and emotionally tortures him. He's not the only one who feels his sacred gifts are giving him knee jives to the sacred joo-joo...

For, I too, have a special Sense. Yes, it's true-- I, too, feel the inflammatory pangs of my semi-scientific talent, crow-barring at the rust-crusted metaphoric nails of my cranium and pin-striping my pedant-envying purity.

Yes..., I've got a "sense" too...

It's an uncanny ability to spot people mid-plot; a pseudo-scientific nose for catching ordinary folk involved in underhanded conspiracies and cover-ups...

And, it was whispering through napkins to me today as I had lunch with my grandparents at their favorite All-you-can-eat buffet in Orange County....

This forth dimension-transgressing "sense" of mine said to me: "The senior citizens are up to something here. There's something fishy going on by the baked salmon buffet."

I mean, how else could you explain such secure cognizance of Monday-only potato dishes, Thursday-specific cobbler knowledge, and the busgirl's Green Card family specifics? How else could you explain the common, local nodding at the old woman who picked up each and every piece of silverware only to replace it before returning to her seat to symbolically wash a single fork in her water glass? Or, the couple who mysteriously stuffed four bulky napkins into two pockets and snuck out the back door when they realized the enchiladas were finished? Or, the conspiratorial, constituent-based firing of the cashier who stole tip money, ignored senior citizen discounts, had no relatives and couldn't count back change? It looks to me like Pinochet's potholder-knitting regime is back in full force.

And, I don't think I'm the only one who could tell something was up. Anyone could see by looking at these seniors that they were plotting something in that Home Town Buffet... Maybe a counter culture-esque romance novel revival, an elaborate comfort-food media diversion, a strangle assassination using prescription pill-chrocheted twine, an undermining eco-terroristic explosion of state-supplied oxygen tanks...

Well, whatever it was..., it was clearly something dangerous.

I could just sense it. Those grandmas had something scandalous up their sleeves.

So, just a bit of advise: Be careful, aware, and have a closer look at the elderly in your own neighborhood. The lady down the street who talks to stuffed, pink kittens might just be the ringleader of the International achy bone virus-smuggling Cartel. And, just how do you think Old Mister Polyester-in-Suspenders actually gets his tomato plants to be so impossibly healthy and fertile?

He's got secrets international intelligence agencies don't, that's how.

*Disclaimer: I am, in no way, asserting that everyone over the ripe age of 35 is involved in nefarious dealings; only that we have to be cautious.