guess who came to dinner

aka "the beady-eyed cruet set"

Is is doubtful that any of you remember Mr. Li, who courted me relentlessly with repugnant gifts and threats to his rival Ed (who he called, as I recollect, "Dangerfleece"). Should you wish to see the course of this courtship, I recommend that you go to the search bar on this site (top left), search Mr. Li and read all comments.
   Here, however is the link that shows the above couple in their original form when I received them, entitled "What is this, Mr. Li?" He called it a beady-eyed cruet set, but in actuality it was a shit-brown set of salt-and-pepper shakers with a mustard pot. Hideous.
   For ten years, I moved the thing to increasingly hidden locales where my eye wouldn't fall on them unwarned. Somehow the mustard pot got broken—I swear not on purpose. This spring I took the big step: I gave them away.
   Judy has a kitchy shop on Block Island, and she took the ugly things off my hands. "I hope CBA doesn't see these," I said. "She'll kill me. But she hasn't been on the island in a couple years, so I doubt she will."
   Naturally the things didn't sell over the summer, and of course CBA showed up in the fall and became best buds with Judy, stopping in at the shop so often that she came to know the goods as well as the shopowner herself. She found the beady-eyed cruet set. (Sans beady eyes, as Judy had hoped they would sell better as the blind originals.) Irate, CBA decided that rather than hoping a serial killer would punish me for my ingratitude, she and Judy would face me with the truth. And when we gathered at Claudia's Surf City for dinner, they produced this loathsome couple. Ack!

"Ingrate," CBA (left) accused me as Judy looked on. "You thought I would never know! But your karma is to never be rid of the beady-eyed cruets!"