Round 6 - Food (Injin vs Dragon)

[Kaez]

Write a story using dialogue only. Your topic is Food.

[Injin]

Uncle Geoff's Cook Off Episode 63

“Is the camera on? Okay! Let’s start the show!”

“Yes, yes, Steven, it’s time for Uncle Geoff’s Cook Off! Staring myself, of course… Geoff!”

“and me, Ethan! Today we’re making elderberry pie! What do you think of pie, Uncle?”

“Oh, Gregory, there’s so much to enjoy about pie. There’s the crust, nice and flakey. Of course, the filling, ooh the filling. And the warmth just emanates outwards and floods your head with the smell of Americana and I just, uh. Anyway. We aren’t making that today”

“But, Uncle Geoff, I got all of the ingredients together and everything! Why are we not making pie?”

“Uncle Geoff was hungry and ate the finished product again, little Joffrey”

“Again?”

“We’re making Cinnamon Toast Crush! Now, Buster can you see why kids enjoy Cinnamon Toast Crunch?”

“What? Why are you saying that, Uncle Geoff? Should, should I call mom?”

“No, no, no, you should know this. It’s because its magically delicious”

“Okay? Uh. Should I get the phone?”

“Magically Delicious, Billy. Magically. Delicious. Sinful Cinnamon all melting in my mouth with whole milk dripping from my spoon onto my outstretched hand so as to not miss a delectable drop, Billy. Do you understand what I mean? Yes. Get the milk. And some honey if you can find some.”

“…Yes Uncle Geoff”

“While my good nephew Bartholomew is getting me my milk, let us talk of the other planned foods that we talked about at the end of the last video. Unfortunately, I have to cancel the Banana Pudding due to an accident involving my lips and mouth, so I can't possibly start describing the potassium infused banana flesh, fresh from the depths of the sunlit peel, mixed in with sugar and flour from the garden of the gods, each tempered with flakes of the most delightful cracked peppers and, oh look here comes Israel now with my milk and honey!”

“Looks like mom forgot to go to the store, Uncle Geoff. All we have is filtered 2% milk and no honey”

“That works. And now, my beloved studio audience, the cereal”

“Uncle? Why is there no cereal?”

“Oh. Right. Afternoon snack two days ago. That’s alright, my lovely food-craving audience, we should still be able to salvage this. Diogenes, would you mind passing me a box of the Dichotomy of Good and Evil?”

“Uh. Who is Diogenes?”

“The box marked D of G and E, please nephew. Now.”

“Oh. Right! Where…?”

“Now, while my nephew Skip is getting that box, why don’t I tell you about the Dichotomy of Good and Evil. The delectability starts with the idea of a dichotomy in the first place. Two things deliciously pitted against each other as I savor their competing flavors. The first time I tasted this sweet mixture was when I was stationed in Berlin near the end of the Cold War. The radio captain at my barracks put out a bulletin one night… something about a released experiment. I hardly noticed at the time, given that I was doing push-ups, but something leaped out from the shadows and tore into my body through my prefrontal cortex. From then on I could taste all things. Thoughts. Dreams. Concepts. And, eventually, I learned how to condense them into edible forms, if only I thought of them as food. There are a number of nasty side effects, such as, oh look here comes little Skip now!”

“Are you okay, Uncle? You were talking about weird stuff again”

“What do you mean, little Bertrand? I was simply reminiscing about. Uh. Something? What was I saying?”

“The Dichotomy of Good and Evil. Right? Is this the box you wanted?”

“That? Oh, yes, that. Yes, Horatio. The box that contains the Dichotomy of Good and Evil, if you would”

“Are you sure this is it?”

“Of course David, this is the box. Only a jewelry box can contain ideas. Let’s see how its matured since I put it away a few years back”

“Uncle Geoff, it looks like a lump of grey, uhhh, something?”

“Well, Timaeus, when you have seen what I have, a lump of grey something can be a lot of things. A grenade. A grapefruit. In this case, the Dichotomy of Good and Evil. As I said…Oh yes…concepts, when left to wither on the vine, have a peculiarly savory flavor. Like a meat filled with emotional conceit and mournful regrets. Mmm”

“You’re being weird again, Uncle Geoff. We need to get to the last part of the show, I think”

“Right! The recipe for one of my wondrous creations. I suppose I have to be honest about the recipe for the Dichotomy of Good and Evil. It’s not really easy to copy given most people’s limitations, but the best way to get something similar is to do the following: First get some Alsatian Swiss and melt it into a glass bowl. Make sure that the grey-blue cheese is, wait. What is it Ethan?”

“You got my name right!”

“Ethan. What is it?”

“Uh. That thing. What’s Alsatian Swiss? I thought Swiss was just Swiss. Right? And. Uncle. Isn’t Swiss cheese yellow?”

“Of course Swiss cheese is yellow. But, you should know what Alsatian Swiss is. I ate it all the time when I was stationed overseas. I must’ve told you a story or two about it.”

“Is Alsatian a brand, Uncle?”

“No?”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Well. I… think?”

“Well, I don’t think most people will know what that is - Oh no, it’s almost four thirty! Mom’s going to be home soon.”

“Of course my main little man. Ready for the outro?”

“For those who still want the recipe, I guess I can look up the ingredients he’ll tell me about later and post them as part of the description. From everyone here at Uncle Geoff’s Cook Off, I’m Ethan!”

“And I’m Uncle Geoff. See you next time, viewers!”

[J.O.N ((Dragonwing))]

Rats

"This rain is astounding lieutenant! Any more of it and we will have to swim to the Huns."

"I expect the Butcher will be supplying us with snorkels, sir."

"I expect we will get them two months late and in the middle of a drought. Tomorrow we will finally get those snow shovels we asked for."

"We could still use them for the mud, sir"

"Ha! Oh I remember when we used to shovel the snow in the morning, before going inside to have a proper English breakfast!"

"My ma would have a blood pudding ready for us..."

"Ah yes, an Englishwoman after my heart."

"I still remember the taste of the pennyroyal she picked from our garden."

"I could go awol for a potato, myself."

"I think the Ulster 2nd Rifles did sir."

"Cheer up lieutenant! There's Willy, maybe he has worked up a true miracle of the Sommes for us!"

"G'day Major, I was just about to get you. Got breakkie stewing as we speak."

"See lieutenant, we can always trust Willy to give us a proper brea- what is that?"

"That Major? It's a tail... sir"

"Willy, what are we having for breakfast?"

"Cow and greens, sir."

"I don't think I have seen a cow with a tail like that."

"That's a rats tail, sir."

"Thank you lieutenant. Why does our "cow" have a rat tail in it?"

"Oh that's 'cause the rats ate the cow."

"Than what in the bloody hells made you think we were having cow!"

"Well like my papa always told me, you are what you eat, sir."

"You are an affront to the hard work of teachers everywhere. Please tell me we have more than just rat today."

"We did get a large supply of vegetables yesterday, sir. That might mask Willy's rat."

"Yes, yes! Where are the vegetables Willy? I could stomach vermin if I could have some fresh mash and mushy peas."

"Oh of course sir! I wouldn't just feed you cow fed rat! There's some vege's in there too!"

"Well, where? Where are the carrots and cabbage?"

"In the stew sir, rats ate 'em."

[Kaez]

Injin

You did comedy well.

So that's surprising.

It's not perfect, but it's not bad either. It's a chaotic story. Chaos is a real risk in a story this short, because without something to ground the reader, it's easy to get lost. But you manage to keep the two characters distinct and you managed to open it up with a really nice scene-setting bit that keeps the reader aware of, generally, what's happening. I had a very strong visual image of what was happening here, and that's something I -didn't- get from, say, Adam's or Ink's. I found the name-changing gag funnier than it has any right to be - you did a good job choosing increasingly silly, antiquated names. And combining food with the weird philosophy was pretty great, actually. It's a weird kind of comedy... a kind that could easily not work at all. But it works here. Comedy is hard to critique in that I can't really explain -how- or -why- it worked, but, try to figure that out for yourself so you can have more success with it in the future.

That said, was it a little bit repetitive? Yeah. The whole story kind of does the same sequence over and over, and the story doesn't really -go- anywhere. It would be nice if it felt a little more like a story, if it had a little more of a building, budding, and conclusion. But you didn't go for that, and I think that's fine here. Otherwise... this is a little too weird for me to critique very thoroughly. (And that's not strictly exclusive to you - I'm struggling to critique all of the Round 6 stories.) But, hey, I think you pulled off something nice here. Try and figure out what made this comedy work when your previous comedy didn't. There might be some insight in there that you can access that I can't.

Oh, and don't forget to ALWAYS end quotes with punctuation. Always.

***

Dragon

You did comedy well.

So that's surprising.

I quite enjoyed that I got to start both of your reviews the same way. This was genuinely funny. I laughed out loud at the last line - the last writing that made me laugh out loud was James' ridiculous abomination of a sex cult entry. And it's not just the last line, either. It's consistently funny throughout, I just -really- enjoyed the doubling-up on the rats joke. I even like that the title is just the word 'Rats', which becomes its own joke in a way. I think you did wonderfully with the humor here. It's a simple, sparse, light, funny story. I do have a genuine critique of it, though, and that's, oddly, a technical one. You missed out on some pauses here. There are some absent commas - or, in some cases, they could've been ellipses or even dashes - and the absence of those was detrimental to the pacing and the timing. And comedy is nothing if not an art of timing. In other places, you misplaced those pauses. So I do think a little bit of thought to your technicals here would've actually made a noticeable difference in the story.

"That, Major? That's... that's a tail, sir." would've been better.

"I... don't think I have seen a cow with a tail like that." would've been better.

Throughout, you're just missing... probably 10-15 commas. And there's really no excuse for that and their absence is genuinely notable. But your comedy is great, it's just unfortunate that I can look at it and see several places where it could've been even better.

***

This is a really tough one. You both surprised the hell out of me and managed to do a comedy well. Neither of the stories were brilliant works of storytelling, and both of them have shortcomings, and since the prompt was quite restrictive... it's really very difficult to choose. They're comparable in a lot of ways. So I've got to go with just, "Which one was funnier?" And I think that's Jason by a tail.