the shrewdness of apes

a while back, the wife squared challenged me to come up with a fake but plausible story and attempt to get it printed in the NYTimes' Metropolitan Diary section (if you're not familiar with this column - a disgustingly and laughably self-satisfied blend of the Upper East Side and "Life in These United States" from Reader's Digest - read the most recent one here). i haven't taken that challenge yet, but here is an attempt at a real submission, based on actual events with a smarminess quotient that has been elevated significantly:

dear diary:

a famous routine from Seinfeld proposes that it must be hard for a Spanish person to order seltzer and not get salsa due to the similarity with which such a person would pronounce each item. a funny bit, but i figured that my accentless English (or that of my wife) could never lead to such a misunderstanding. so it was with a mixture of shock and awe that i came home on a recent evening to find half of a shiitake burrito in an organic spinach tortilla waiting for me accompanied by two white containers holding that spicy concoction of vegetables called "salsa". wondering whether there might be a difference between them, i inquired of my wife as to their contents to which she - a seltzer connoisseur - affirmed that they both contained salsa. apparently her attempts to procure carbonated water had been misunderstood in exactly the manner predicted by Jerry and George resulting in a glut of pureed tomatoes. then, in a delectable example of happenstance, the self-same episode aired just two days later, eliciting a delighted squeal from my Ohioan wife that announced her arrival as a true New Yorker.