Unexplained Phenomena

Ah lahks mah iced tea.

Pardon the Southern patois for a moment, but it's true. I love iced tea. More specifically, sweet tea. The kind that only comes south of the Mason-Dixon line, east of the Mississippi River. And even then, there's a particular variety in East Tennessee unique for its intense sugar content. Those of us who've traveled abroad (meaning, like, New York or even Texas) know the looks waiters and waitresses get when you order your iced tea sweetened.

"Pre-sweetened??," they think. "What kind of barbarians are you, anyway? You order sweetened iced tea...yet you wear shoes. What manner of madness is this??"

Anyway, that's beside the point and another post away. Suffice to say I love it and drink it almost exclusively in whatever restaurant I happen to patronize.

I also love it so much I usually get one or two refills, and very often will get some in a to-go cup to take with me--

Wait a second, something's coming on TV...


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Cue X-Files music


Mulder: No, that's ok, Scully - I've got the check this time.

Scully: Mulder...what's that sitting on top of your go-cup?

Mulder (looking down): It looks like a straw, Scully. (squats down to peer at the straw, sitting innocently on top of the lidded cup) And it's still wrapped. Scully, this is a new straw!

Scully: Mulder, that's impossible. That can't be a new straw. I mean, look at your glass you were drinking out of bef-- (stops in puzzled disbelief, as she examines Mulder's empty glass on the other side of the table, slightly bent and chewed straw sticking out the open top)

Mulder: I'm telling you, Scully, believe it with your eyes or not, the waitress brought me a brand new straw. Still wrapped and everything.

Scully: But why, Mulder, why?? It doesn't make sense...

Mulder: I know, Scully. Why waste a perfectly good unused straw to go with the to-go cup, when the one I was using is fine. (picks up the straw and examines it closely)

(Scully surreptitiously takes notes for her secret report to the Cancer Man)

Mulder (blowing through straw lightly): Why would a waitress think I'd want to take the time to unwrap a new straw when I have my own still here... I guess it's just one of those weird things, Scully. Let's go - the Lone Gunman won't wait much longer for us...

(Scully stops writing, quickly sticking the notepad back in her pocket)

(Mulder shrugs, pokes the nicely used and ready straw into the hole in the to-go cup lid and takes a sip as he walks out behind Scully.)

(A moment later the wrapped straw, resting alone on the empty table, begins to writhe and morph into a black-oilish substance. It slithers off the table to the floor and oozes away)

(In the corner of the room, The Cancer Man frowns)

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Ok, well it may be an insidious ploy by my enemies to unwittingly introduce a dangerous alien presence onto my person. Or it may not. Still, it's pretty pointless and wasteful to throw away a new straw.


On a brighter point: The X-Files II, coming soon!