Dining In The Dark: Scary Fun

We’re invited to a swank hotel lobby, given beverages, finger food, and aprons. An excellent musician plays piano in the background. Lots of upscale people are milling around, waiting, like us. Finally, a chef from California instructs us to line up according to table numbers, and to put our hand on the shoulder of the person in front of us, like in kindergarten.

When our table number is called, our 10-person conga line approaches the ballroom door. We meet a blind man whose job is to take us to our table. He leads us into a ballroom that’s been transformed into a cave. Absolutely no light of any kind. Totally, completely, pitch dark. Impossible to see the person one foot in front of you, let alone where we’re going.

We snake around the ballroom, taking baby steps, until our blind leader tells us we’ve arrived at our round table. One by one he introduces each of us to our chairs. I sit down. It’s impossible to see anything. No light of any kind, anywhere.

I put my hands on the edge of the table, move my fingers around. I find some forks, a knife, a spoon. In front of me I feel the edge of a small plate. What’s on it? Salad. I lick the dressing off my fingers.

To the right and left I feel two more plates, smaller. Something soft and greasy on them. Butter! My butter? Or did I just stick my fingers in someone else’s butter? Well, it was the plate on the left, so according to my mom (the queen of table manners) it should have been my butter. But it could have been the butter of the former Wall Street banker on my left. Maybe she won’t notice.

Gently moving my right hand forward, I find a glass, with some cold liquid in it. Water? Better taste it and see. Yep. Hope it’s my water. I wonder if I can put it back in the same place and not spill it.

Forks on the left, where they should be. I’m hungry. Time to find out what’s in this salad. Not bad. Some kind of fruity dressing. But half that bite just fell into my lap. Might as well pick it up and put it where it belongs, in my gaping mouth. Nobody can see me.

Now that I think about it, why not just eat the whole darn salad with my fingers? Easier this way. Kinda messy, but efficient. I must look like a caveman, cramming wads of dripping lettuce into my food hole.

What if somebody is filming this with an infrared camera? Will I see myself on youtube tomorrow?

People are laughing, chatting, confessing to eating with their fingers. Good, I’m not the only one. My friend Heidi on my right, who invited me to this, asks me if the butter between us is mine or hers. I tell her I threw mine across the room. That gets a laugh.

Really hungry now. Why’s the main course taking so long? I guess it could take a while to serve 200 people when you can’t see anything. The blind waiter comes around asking if we want wine. Not for me, thanks. But the former Wall Street banker on my left does, and after the waiter leaves she swears he groped her breast.

Heidi’s kind of freaking out a little. She’s holding my hand a lot. It’s so dark. You can hear all these voices, but can’t see anything. Strange how it feels claustrophobic in this big room. The darkness is smothering. But it’s mostly fun. Because I know it will end.

Finally Heidi decides she has to “go to the bathroom.” A blind guide leads her back to the door and out. In reality, she could have gone anywhere. All I know for sure is her voice disappeared. Eventually she comes back, seeming slightly more relaxed.

Finally, the main course! I let my fingers do the walking. Something soft and warm and gooey. Mashed potatoes. This other soft thing feels like…green beans. Ah, here’s something substantial. Some kind of meat, probably. I pick up the knife on the right and start cutting.

Cutting what I can’t see is tricky. How much am I cutting? How hard should I press? When I finally get it cut, I lift it up to the general area of my mouth and can tell it’s a huge bite. Somehow I stuff it all in. Chicken! But something else too. Some kind of filling. Creamy and sweet. Somebody says pistachio. Could be. Whatever, it’s good and I’m starving.

The former Wall Street banker announces the waiter has groped her breast for the 4th time. I ask her out loud if she’s sure it’s him. That gets a laugh and she asks for my phone number. Love surfaces in the most unexpected places.

Now I’m back to using fingers. This knife and fork stuff just takes too long. And besides, nobody can see me, right? (Unless there really is an infrared camera.) I think my apron is gonna be a dead giveaway, though. Like a paintball uniform at the end of a battle. This is a messy meal and a lot of it is winding up many places besides my mouth. But it’s tasty. Even when it’s been in my lap first.

Dessert is some kind of cheesecake. I don’t want it so they bring me the largest fruit plate in history. I’m sure there’s no fruit left in the San Fernando Valley because it’s all on my plate. Enough to feed a colony of Malayan Flying Fruit Bats for a year. Nice variety. Pineapple, grapes, melons, but I’m too full now to eat much of it.

After two and a half hours it’s time for coffee. They wisely choose not to pour hot coffee in the dark, so the dimmest of lights comes on at one end of the room. But it’s enough! We can see! Audible sighs of relief. Ah, so that’s what everybody looks like! Wow. A lot more people in here than I realized.

A man gets up at a podium and tells us about the organization we’re raising money and awareness for. They assist the blind with all kinds of cool services. Then he announces we’re honoring a blind businessman, a man sitting at our table.

This person, a very successful corporate consultant who became blind as a teenager, gives the best ten minute talk I’ve heard in my whole life. He says it’s written that in the beginning God said “Let there be light.” But he doesn’t think that’s quite right. Because the dark is nothing to be afraid of. It’s the cold that’s really terrifying. What we really crave, he said, is warmth.

The warmth of each others’ hearts.

I think I begin to understand.

© 2008 Greg Tamblyn, Motivational Humorist and occasionally messy eater.

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