Imagication

Yesterday I made Spanish rice. Today I went to a Thai restaurant with Mom and ordered a pineapple rice dish.

I bet you're thinking I'm going to write about my overdose of rice. Wrong!

Now. I don't have a lot of money to travel. Let's be honest, I only have enough money to travel as far as the door of my future apartment, then drop my bags and remain there for two years while I finish my degree. Then, after approximately 12 years of paying off student loans, we'll see about maybe landing an awesome job that gives me enough pay for those things people speak of called "vacations." In the meantime I fantasize about traveling/get jealous of those who can travel and find excuses so as not to have to listen to the fine details of their traveling experiences.

I also eat foreign food as a coping mechanism. When I'm really getting pangs for Southern Africa, for instance, I eat rusks and drink rooibos tea with milk. Southern Africa is the only place where I've really traveled, so when I eat Chinese or Ethiopian or Mediterranian food, I just mope about not having been to those places (yet, hopefully).

So I'm thinking. If I mixed yesterday's Spanish rice with today's Thai rice, could I eat it and, finding a geographic midpoint as I do so, pretend that I'm in Iraq? Kind of a three-for-one special?