Eater X shares a dream

He's eaten strange things and gross things and many fancy things that many people think are strange and gross. He refers to anything odd he's already eaten as a Gateway Food because once he's tried it and justified the tasting in his mind, he's far more likely to eat a stranger food if the opportunity arises. It's a slippery slope he traverses.

Eater X can rationalize eating almost anything at least once because he knows that somewhere someone has found something to be delicious. "If it won't kill me, I'm in," is his motto.

Some day Eater X would like to eat alien, which is why he fully supports, on a strictly Rah-Rah! level, the funding of NASA and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Some day, when Eater X finally conquers his chronic case of acute poverty, he'll write each of them a generous check. In the space that reads "Memo," he'll write, "Starving!!!" and draw a picture of a famished Eater X to inspire them when they're frustrated.

He also fully supports DNA research, like the kind that inspired Michael Crichton to write Jurassic Park. Scientists commonly refer to DNA as a code, but Eater X prefers to think of it as a lengthy menu. If someone can ever figure out how to recreate extinct species, Eater X will scrape together what little money he has and become the first entrepreneur to open a Jurassic restaurant. There dinosaurs will be among the featured dishes, and the question, "Does pterodactyl taste like chicken?" will finally be answered.

Eater X doesn't have any qualms about eating endangered species. He understands that doing so might anger a few bleeding hearts, but he thinks it'd be a great way to make a name for himself. Tonight on Conan: Nicole Kidman, Jessica Alba, and the Guy Who Ate the Last Sea Cow! In a perfect world, in a world with Jurassic Park technology, Eater X won't have to worry about angering anybody with his choice of meals. Every animal, quite literally, will be fair game. If the last California Condor winds up on his dinner plate some night (gasp!), he'll simply grow another in a test tube (sigh).

Until recently monkey was the only meal that might have made Eater X pause. For years he'd been wondering, "Is it cannibalism to eat a fellow primate?" And then one day a friend asked Eater X what he'd do if he were stranded on a deserted island. "Would you eat people?" came the question. Eater X thought long and hard about the implications of a brief diet of people meat. Courts, he figured, would probably consider the island to be a mitigating circumstance, and he'd probably go free if he promised never to do it again. So after what appeared to be a moment of careful consideration, which was really just a dramatic pause, Eater X sheepishly admitted that under some strange moon and perhaps wearing a disguise, he might eat human flesh, which immediately made the monkey morass moot. Tonight if you were to place a piece of monkey on Eater X's plate, he'd give pause just long enough to render an appropriate toast. "Thank you, Dr. Zaius!" it would begin.

Three years ago Eater X sat down to a dinner of lion meat, which he'd purchased as a Christmas gift for his dad. It made him feel powerful in the same way he imagined a vigilante might feel after bringing to justice a wanted man; Eater X was eating the medium-rare flesh of an animal that he morbidly hoped had once eaten another human being. "This one's for that guy!" he thought to himself as he took his first bite and discovered that revenge is sweet, indeed, and even sweeter washed down with a dark beer.

At some point during the meal, Eater X and his dining partners discussed which other animals each of them would eat. His stepmother, who is not possessed by the desire to eat all of God's creatures great and small, suggested that she draws the line at animals she thinks are beautiful, like calves and lambs and horses. Eater X respects her decision to eat only the ugliest creatures, and he thinks that some day the animal kingdom might be more handsome because of her, but he won't be basing his diet upon beauty alone. He told her that he'll eat almost anything and then without a segue added tangentially, "I believe we're all entitled to change our minds." It was a veiled suggestion that she might want to consider changing hers because someday when he captures and kills and cooks the world's only unicorn, he'd like to fetch her a plate.