A Bowl of Rice, Jerked Chicken and Cole Slaw

The Great Plotnik went to a baseball game with his friend The Great Mushnik. The Great Plotnik looked around at the beautiful baseball stadium with its green grass, orange waving flags and blue water beyond, and it was good. Then he saw the bowl of rice with jerked chicken and cole slaw and that was even better. The Great Plotnik finished his First Bowl before the First Inning. "THAT is SOME combination," he thought. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Standing next to this food stand was the very man who had made the delicious bowl of rice with jerked chicken and cole slaw. He was not only a fine chef, but an ex-baseball player, a superstar, a man from the island of Puerto Rico who, in his playing days, had struck fear into the hearts of his opponents. The Great Plotnik remembered him well. The Great Plotnik had once had an uncle who had loved this ex-player so much he named his big black dog after him.

The Great Plotnik, flushed with love for his recent bowl of rice and jerked chicken and cole slaw, wanted to tell the ex-player about the ex-uncle and the ex-dog. Yet, despite all the knowledge and wisdom accumulated by a man who, after all, was the progenitor of his entire race, a race that isn't going so well, I might add, but isn't going so badly either, I mean, we're still here, we're not extinct, we're not ex-anything yet, unlike, say, passenger pigeons or sweet-and-sour liver or PresbyHindus (another unsuccessful combination), The Great Plotnik could not find the words to tell the ex-player that The Great Plotnik's ex-uncle had once named his ex-dog after the ex-player. So The Great Plotnik simply shook the ex-player's hand and thanked him for his delicious bowl of rice, jerked chicken and cole slaw.

A thought balloon appeared over the ex-player's head. It read: "Ai, caramba! Es posible que este senor sea el Gran Plotnik? Dios mio! Que increible!"

When The Great Plotnik returned to his seat he told his friend, The Great Mushnik, that he had been unable to find the words to inform the ex-player about the dog that shared his name. The Great Mushnik took an enormous bite from her Polish dog with fresh tomatoes and pickles, without, it must be said, offering even the meagerest taste to her friend, even though it was The Great Plotnik who had invented the combination of Polish dog, fresh tomatoes and pickles in the first place (it was the Number 449), and acknowledged that The Great Plotnik had probably done the right thing. The uncle and the dog wasn't that good a story.

The game got completely out of hand soon after.