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That’s Just Perverse

The Source

So I have this friend named Bob who’s name is not Bob, but he reads the Source so I’ll call him Bob. The guy is the most perverse person I know. No matter what position I take on something Bob will maintain the opposite opinion. I used to think he was playing some sort of strange game with me but lately I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s just plain obstinate. He doesn’t drink coffee and once told me that there would be no coffee in Heaven. I politely informed my friend that it could not possibly be Heaven without coffee. Bob is just perverse. We once sat down together to eat lunch at a summer camp and macaroni and cheese was the main course. He stopped eating, looked at me, and said, “What are you doing?” I told him that I was putting ketchup on my mac and cheese. He said, “You’re kidding.” I told him I wasn’t. Back in the sixties the lunch tables at Perry High School always featured those red plastic ketchup bottles. Heck, everybody used it. Bob thought it was disgusting, but remember, Bob is perverse. We often end up in the same church service and Bob favors the more modern type of service where the congregation sings by watching the words projected on a screen in the front of the sanctuary. He tells me this is an improvement over the traditional hymnbooks because it gets people’s noses up out of the book and pointed toward God. I tell him that I’ve never really had a desire to point my nose toward God. Besides that, I like the feel of a hymnbook in my hands. I mean, otherwise, what do you do with your hands? He says I should raise them in the air. I tell him that would make arms tired and besides that, I’m Presbyterian and they’d probably call a doctor if I spent the entire service with my hands in the air. He tells me that computer generated hymns are cheaper than hymnals. I tell him that you can’t follow the musical line with only words instead of notes. He disagrees, but what would you expect from someone so perverse? Once upon a time Bob and I shared a hotel room while we were attending a conference. The meeting was held in mid-January so a bit of heat was a necessity in our room. We nearly came to blows. Bob insisted on firing up the thermostat to egg-poaching temperatures while I cannot sleep unless my bedroom is cold. I told him to have his way and kick it up as high as he liked then as soon as he started snoring I got up and turned the dial back down to more arctic levels. It’s a minor thing, but Bob puts salt on his watermelon. I find that revolting. Why not just eat popcorn for dessert if you want salt? Bob reads three sections of any newspaper: the comics, the sports page, and the horoscopes. I skip all three and read only the news. Sometimes Bob reads my horoscope aloud to me and I’m forced to throw things at him. Bob has this strange habit when we sit down to eat a meal in a restaurant or anywhere else. He’ll immediately grab his glass of whatever liquid is available and gulp the whole thing down before he eats a bite of food. I think this is weird. Maybe even perverse. He says that real chili doesn’t contain beans. I tell him this is ridiculous and I have indisputable proof: my mother made it that way. She wasn’t perverse. I put ranch dressing on my salad and Bob eats his naked. I mean, you know, he’s fully dressed but he puts nothing on his lettuce and tomatoes. He swallows them bare. I like my ice cream au naturale, without any toppings to cover up the taste of the actual thing. Bob loads his with nuts and syrups and potions to the point where he can’t even tell what flavor of ice cream he’s eating.

. . Plain hotdogs