Of Oatmeal and Che

I dreamed the other night that Che Guevara was coming to my house for dinner. It was a very large house, and it was a very large dinner party. I knew that Che was not going to be there for very long because he was very, very old. So I had my eye out for him because I wanted to ask him how he liked Benecio del Toro in the movie.

Just as he was about to arrive, one of my guests—never seen him before--said he was dying for some oatmeal…literally, dying. There have been some comments in the past, internally among my household, that I am not the most accomplished of hostesses, so I couldn’t just blow the guy off. I knew I had some instant oatmeal in my kitchen, but you know what? When I got there it was my parents’ kitchen, and it was enormous. It was rooms long, filled with dark, disorganized cupboards, and the cupboards were filled with old, mislabeled food. I kept finding stuff that looked like it could be instant oatmeal—no, that one was drain cleaner. I could try cooking this other one, but it might not be food. One way or another, it looked like that guy was out of luck.

Now Che was arriving, but I was stuck in the kitchen trying to make oatmeal for the guy who was dying—by now, he was lying nearly unconscious across the laps of several other dinner guests. All I had been able to find was old fashioned oatmeal. It had to be fully cooked. Che Guevara left, and I never got to meet him. I have no memory of the fate of my dying guest.

I hope Benecio del Toro is good in the movie.