@galenkp's Weekend Engagement 87 post topic is "Three People," and I think I'll take a crack at option two: The dinner party
You are holding a dinner party and can invite any three people on the planet however none can be related to you, meaning family members. One of the invitees must be from history (deceased) - who do you invite and why?
There's an old Pearls Before Swine comic which comes to mind... and since this is the internet, I'll add a link and try to embed the strip itself instead of poorly explaining it!
Thank goodness for the ability to inspect the page code and retrieve the image file from behind their layers of obfuscation.
Enough beating around the bush. One of the invitees is presumably borrowed by time machine from the past, two must be from the present since only one is specified to be deceased in the scenario, and then there's me. I only speak English. If we're assuming something like Bill and Ted's phone booth as our time machine, this... might be a problem. I am taking the liberty of assuming I have the TARDIS-like power to bend time, so why not just claim the TARDIS itself? I'll also assume it translates everything for everyone like in Doctor Who, too. Problem solved!
I would like to host a philosophical discussion between Augustine of Hippo, podcaster/ghostwriter/professional internet troll Michael Malice, and journalist Glenn Greenwald. I think all three share enough common ground and intellectual honesty for civil discourse, but sufficiently diverse positions for interesting conversation. Augustine is one of the foremost experts in philosophy and theology from his time, and his work The City of God suggests considerable thought regarding human culture and society. Malice is apparently well read in a variety of subjects. Greenwald offers a unique perspective on current events and global affairs from his journalistic experience. A conversation with those three individuals would be one hell of an episode of Your Welcome!
Discussion could get heated. Greenwald is gay, and as far as I know, Malice may well be an atheist. Would Augustine be able to keep his cool? Would he even be able to keep up with so much change in the past 1600 years? Greenwald leans left on many issues where Malice to some extent and Augustine for certain would lean right. Malice is an anarchist, while Greenwald and Augustine apparently see some legitimacy in political structures as we know them historically and today.
The dinner had better be good enough for everyone to keep cool for the sake of the occasion. Now I have a menu to plan. Hmm.
Image credit
Seafood and salad seems appropriate. On top of basic Mediterranean fare, we need to see how Augustine likes Cajun cooking! He lived a millennium before the discovery of the New World. I wonder how he would react to cayenne pepper? He is also apparently the patron saint of brewers, so along with appropriate wine, perhaps we need some microbrewery IPAs and stouts. I just hope this trio doesn't get belligerent when they're drunk...
Once dinner is done and the guests return home, how would Augustine respond in returning to his own time with this glimpse into the future? Have I radically altered history by recklessly introducing my historical dinner guest to these other two personalities? Can I rely on timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly hand-waving, or does the world I left after dinner get replaced with something completely different, for better or worse, on my return to 2022? What consequences would you expect? Chime in below!
Aw, man! I did this all wrong! This should have been a mess of plagiarism, repetition, and run-on sentences. I took the prompt seriously. I promise I won't do it again. ;)
