My Lunch With Leon

We haven’t even ordered drinks yet, and already I am being baited into a ridiculously stupid argument. Leon is ranting about how important “spoiler warnings” are, and how careless people have become about revealing details. This whole conversation came about because Leon yelled at someone this morning for quoting Leviticus to him.

“I haven’t finished it yet! Jesus! – You’d think people would warn you before they give away all the details. How hard is it to preface the comment with a warning? It’s bad enough I already know the meek will inherit the earth, thanks to some loudmouth who couldn’t wait to spoil it for me, but now none of it will be a surprise to me.”

He could go on like this all day if I don’t interrupt him.

Now, it is well known that Leon can be difficult to get along with, but it is not nearly as well known why: Leon just likes to argue. It took me a while to figure this out, but once I did it became easier to get along with him. All I do is take a position that is the complete opposite of what I believe, and allow him to convince me of what I already know to be true. When I am tired of arguing, I just agree with him.

But on days like today I don’t manage to establish my position quick enough, and I’m forced to argue that Nostradamus wasn’t the moral equivalent of the guy in the back of the movie theater who shouts out the ending.

“Why can’t people just let me have my surprises?”, he asks, “How many god damn surprises does life really give you anyway?”

I resist the urge to tell him I was completely unable to predict this conversation. I try to change the subject, and make comments about how crime should never be punished, which gets me some strange looks from our waiter, but fails to derail Leon’s rant. I consider pointing out that he just took the lord’s name in vain, but can’t remember that prohibition’s location relative to Leon’s current bookmark, and so I start mentally going through the books of the bible. For some reason, the name “Deuteronomy” always makes me chuckle.

“This isn’t funny!”, his face is turning red, “We need laws to protect literary secrets, just like we have laws to protect government secrets!”

He usually doesn’t get this worked up, so I know this truly bothers him. But since this conversation is starting to bother me I see only one way to end it. I tell him I agree with him, since I felt the same way when someone told me that rosebud was a sled. Of course I apologize for my “unintentional” slip-up, but it is too late.

“You can’t unring a bell!”, he shouts, and gets up to leave.

I say to his back that he is over-reacting as he walks out of the restaurant. It’s not like I told him Darth is Luke’s father. His scream makes the whole conversation worthwhile.