“Le Table is set!” Madame announces to the room, inviting all to come and feast their minds on what’s on being served.
The two dogs, Polo and Rugby, turned their heads, but held their ground. They were too well-behaved to rush in before the humans had taken their seats. Clovis, the cat, loitered in the rafters, accustomed all too well to letting the two-legged lot have their fill before venturing to his own set of plates.
The Engineer, prompt as always, filed in first, his fine-grained plaid shirt appearing as graph paper, with the pocket calculator tightly nestled in its appointed chest pocket. Not far behind him was the Musician, a man with similarly fine-tuned timing, a polymath of soundmaking, whose long coattails he referred to as “aristocratic mudflaps”.
“You’ll find Assorted Musings by the hardboiled eggs today,” said Madame. “Contrarian Rabbit Holes by the sausage patties, and Direct Lines of Inquiry near the yogurt.”
“Delightful as always, Madame,” said the Engineer.
“Exquisitely arranged,” said the Musician.
In came Jody Hipster, her radiant bob freshly dyed to tinges of yellow for the summer. In the fall it would shade to red and then brown for the winter.
“Where is the paprika? Andalusian that is. It’s too early for Hungarian.”
“I’ve moved it to Timely Observations, dear,” answered Madame. “I thought it was overpowering the Direct Lines.”
“I have assessed the overall layout and I have to concur,” at last entered the Analyst, pushing her glasses back up her nose, her over-sized sweater over-warming in the late spring. “But I require further data to verify my findings.”
And so the household sat down at the table, to breakfast together, under the roof of Madame Le Table.