Work Notes

My assistant, who is normally very shy, quiet and serious, found herself dragged out to lunch with me and a couple of my hooligan friends.

In order to defend herself, she told a joke.

"What do you call a (insert resident of neighboring Southern state) with a pig under each arm?"

We waited, breathless with anticipation.

"A pimp!"

"No, no," she corrected herself, "I mean a sheep!"

A sheep under each arm, that is.

Somehow the mental visual of an overall-clad redneck lurking on a street corner asking passing cars if they wanted a little soooey was funnier than anything involving sheep. Even blow-up sheep.

Somehow the conversation moved on to eating inappropriate animals, including armadillos, snakes and raccoons.

The one thing we agreed on was that we couldn't eat frog legs because we were extremely concerned about what happened to the frogs.

"Do they grow their legs back?"

"Do they throw them away?"

"Do they use them for fertilizer?"

I remembered the old New Yorker cartoon, with the line of tiny mutilated frogs trailing out of a restaurant kitchen using crutches and wheelchairs . . .

What does happen to the frogs?

And why isn't PETA all over it?

Surprisingly, several tables moved away from us.