On Fri, 22 Jul 2022 13:30:45 -0400, Jeffrey Schwartz wrote:

>Consider this to be in the Old Scout series...
>.....
>...
>I got back to our Embassy and got chewed out by Ambassador Lyssa. She said
>my behavior toward the Vargr attache was rude and impolite. That she had no
>problem getting along with him and maybe I should try being nicer. "You
>catch more flies with sugar than with astringent"
>I nodded, told her I'd try that. "I'll even send him a gift"
>I would have loved to have been able to see the look on the son of a
>bitch's face when he unwrapped the "death by chocolate"cake I had delivered

I like this... and it falls in very well with my last Jotting ("Insults")
in Freelance Traveller July/August 2022...

The gift of a 'death by chocolate' cake is only an insult if _all_ of the
following are known to be true:

  1. The Vargr attaché knows what chocolate is and that it's a (slow)
     poison to him
  2. The human narrator knows that chocolate is a slow poison to Vargr
  3. The Vargr attaché knows that statement 2 is true
  4. The Vargr knows that the chocolate cake in question is called 'death
     by chocolate'.

The narrative makes it clear that statement 2 is true. We don't have enough
information to know whether the others are. The narration appears to assume
that all four statements are true. Were I in Ambassador Lyssa's shoes, I'd
be calling the narrator on the carpet very informally, and explaining why
the gift was inappropriate, assuming for the purpose that the narrator did
_not_ know that all four facts were true, unless and until it became
_evident_ - at which point disciplinary action becomes necessary.

(For the few people on the list that might not be cognizant of the
chocolate-as-poison fact: Chocolate contains a substance called
theobromine, related to caffeine. While the human metabolism can process
both caffeine and theobromine reasonably efficiently, the canine/lupine
metabolism does not, and both substances can build up in a dog's - or
Vargr's - body.)

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