{"id":11234746,"date":"2007-07-20T18:10:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-20T18:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/2007\/07\/20\/Amazon-com-Jon-Ronsons-Blog\/"},"modified":"2007-11-25T23:56:41","modified_gmt":"2007-11-25T23:56:41","slug":"Amazon-com-Jon-Ronsons-Blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/?p=11234746","title":{"rendered":"Amazon.com: Jon Ronsons Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='sustuff'>Stumbleupon <a href='http:\/\/bunty.stumbleupon.com\/review\/11234746\/'>Review<\/a> of :<br \/>\n\t<a href='http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/blog\/A3C2KN9OV2QAOC\/002-6847012-9369630'>http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/blog\/A3C2KN9OV2QAOC\/002-6847012-9369630<\/a><a href='http:\/\/www.stumbleupon.com\/url\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/blog\/A3C2KN9OV2QAOC\/002-6847012-9369630'><img src='http:\/\/bunty.tv\/images\/smallstumble.png'><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<ul style=\"width : 580px; color : silver; padding : 5px; border : 1px dotted coral; margin : 10px auto;\">From the page: &#8220;My wife Elaine and I are having a weekend away. We&#8217;re eating dinner in a restaurant in a country house hotel. I&#8217;m about to inadvertently do a terrible thing.<br \/>\nWe&#8217;ve been waiting for our soup for half-an-hour. I&#8217;m sitting there, shooting waiters paranoid, hungry glances. When it finally arrives I begin to eat it ravenously.<br \/>\n&#8220;Jon,&#8221; whispers Elaine. &#8220;See that girl on the next table?&#8221;<br \/>\nI look up from my soup and spot a frumpy young girl, about 14, wearing a ball gown and sitting with her parents.<br \/>\n&#8220;I just saw her mimic the way you ate your soup,&#8221; whispers Elaine.<br \/>\n&#8220;Really?&#8221; I whisper.<br \/>\n&#8220;Spoiled rich cow,&#8221; whispers Elaine. &#8220;She did this impersonation for her parents of someone eating their soup disgustingly, and I know it was an impersonation of you because you ARE eating your soup disgustingly. It was like this&#8221;<br \/>\nElaine does an imitation of the girl doing an imitation of me.  She twists her face, and mimes some gargoyle hunchback stuffing soup into their mouth.<br \/>\n&#8220;Oh, so what?&#8221; I say. &#8220;She&#8217;s only 14 or something. How did her parents respond?&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;They smiled,&#8221; says Elaine.<br \/>\nI feel a flash of anger.<br \/>\n&#8220;She&#8217;s hardly Gwyneth Paltrow herself,&#8221; says Elaine.<br \/>\nI turn back to my soup, but suddenly it doesn&#8217;t taste so nice. Suddenly, my soup is a big issue.<br \/>\n&#8220;I&#8217;m going to the toilet,&#8221; I say.<br \/>\nThe toilets are at the other end of a grand hallway. As I walk back to the table, I see the girl walking towards me, on her way to the toilet. It is just me and her, alone in this grand hallway.<br \/>\n&#8220;She&#8217;s so rude,&#8221; I think. &#8220;And the awful thing is, she&#8217;ll never know that I know she mimicked me.&#8221;<br \/>\nI narrow my eyes. &#8220;I have to say something to her,&#8221; I think. &#8220;Maybe I should be unambiguous: &#8211; It&#8217;s not nice to grotesquely mime the way someone eats their soup.&#8217; Or maybe I should be insulting:  &#8211; I see YOU hunched over YOUR food frumpily, but I don&#8217;t mimic YOU.'&#8221;<br \/>\nI pause. &#8220;No,&#8221; I think. &#8220;Too much.&#8221;<br \/>\n And then, suddenly, I know exactly what to do.<br \/>\n&#8220;It&#8217;s perfect,&#8221; I think. &#8220;It&#8217;s simple and devastating. I&#8217;ll just catch her eye and silently do an impersonation of someone eating soup disgustingly. I&#8217;ll mimic her mimicking me! Not a word will pass between us. But she&#8217;ll know. She&#8217;ll know she&#8217;s been caught out.&#8221;<br \/>\nWe&#8217;re six feet apart now. I suddenly feel nervous about the whole thing. It is very combative, and I&#8217;m not usually a combative person.<br \/>\n&#8220;Do it, Jon,&#8221; I think. &#8220;Teach her a lesson. If you don&#8217;t you&#8217;ll regret it.&#8221;<br \/>\nAnd so I do. My heart is racing. Still, I make it look casual. I look her straight in the eye, open my mouth and rhythmically move my hand up and down, up and down towards it &#8211; clenched as if holding a soup spoon &#8211; up and down, towards my open mouth.<br \/>\n&#8220;This is great!&#8221; I think. &#8220;Withering!&#8221;<br \/>\nI shoot her a proud look as I continue my impersonation.<br \/>\n&#8220;You&#8217;d better think twice next time you decide to grotesquely mimic the eating habits of your betters. Yes, your betters!'&#8221; I think.<br \/>\nThe girl looks appropriately startled.<br \/>\nIt is at this moment that the awful truth dawns on me. My impersonation of someone eating their soup ravenously is identical to the way people mime blowjobs. I am&#8211;for all intent and purpose&#8211;a 39-year-old man miming a blowjob to a passing 14-year-old girl in a hotel lobby.<br \/>\n&#8220;Oh Jesus Christ,&#8221; I think.<br \/>\nI stare at the ground and walk hurriedly back to our table.<br \/>\n&#8220;What happened?&#8221; says Elaine. &#8220;You look as white as a sheet. You&#8217;re shaking.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Shall we get the bill?&#8221; I ask.&#8221;<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stumbleupon Review of : http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/blog\/A3C2KN9OV2QAOC\/002-6847012-9369630 From the page: &#8220;My wife Elaine and I are having a weekend away. We&#8217;re eating dinner in a restaurant in a country house hotel. I&#8217;m about to inadvertently do a terrible thing. We&#8217;ve been waiting &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/?p=11234746\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":""},"categories":[1488],"tags":[455],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11234746"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11234746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11234746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11234746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11234746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/su.blog.bunty.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11234746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}