Eating is the Axis of Evil - Zach Porter

As we sat in the Iraqi restaurant (in Kentucky) I felt increasingly apprehensive. I was visiting with a friend and his girl. It wasn't them. And it wasn't the Iraqi proprietress, it was the other Americans. There was a large table of Americans sitting together enjoying dinner, or perhaps plotting. A Caucasian waitress comes to take our order and I become increasingly more frightened. Straight ahead of me there is a belly dancer in exotic clothing who is handed a sword by some long-haired yokel who takes a seat with the potentially dangerous conspirators. Fear turns to confusion when I realize I thought belly dancing was primarily a Moroccan thing, extending across North Africa perhaps, but not to Iraq. Don't pay me too much mind about that, I'm not a traveled person. But was the dancing just in the interest of entertaining the unknowing, uncaring American patrons? Is one Arabic speaking country just as good or the same as the next to us? Can we mix and match Middle Eastern novelties? Two young, good looking Arab girls walk in and start smoking a "Hooka" and speaking in Arabic to the Iraqi owners. They are more mysterious than the American family but less ominous. Both parties seem equally unapproachable. The American waitress brings our stuff. I feel like I have seen her in a barbecue joint before or someone like her playing a waitress in a movie in a scene in a barbecue joint. Or perhaps it was a Cracker Barrel, but not in a movie or on TV.

The food is excellent. Humus and stuffed grape leaves with lamb and some other spices I don't know about. But it was great. Middle Eastern food hits the spot. The belly dancer came out again. She didn't look Iraqi to me but that does not mean that she wasn't. After she finishes she sits with the ominous group, who were becoming increasingly more evil looking by the minute for no particular reason that I can pinpoint. I decided the belly dancer was nice and possibly somehow the victim of some situation that would remain unclear. The "Hooka" girls are wearing jeans and laughing amongst themselves and I wish I was sitting with them, speaking Arabic and puffing tobacco on that magical looking smoke contraption. But I can do neither and I don't bother to ask.