Dear Basty,

Tonight I came home from Soma, where I was working on chapter one of Latent Variable Realism in Psychometrics to find that you had gotten into the trash. This displeased me very much. It has been so long since you misbehaved in this way. Our relationship has taken a step backward. How can I trust you to be on your own when you do such things? Now, I realize that scraps of my dinner must have been quite the temptation. It is not every day that someone so masterfully whips up pasta with a balanced blend of cajun spiced sauteed mushrooms, asparagus, roma tomatoes and mustard sauce. I myself could not resist such as artistic creation and ate all but a few scraps. You must have been thinking the following: what pefectly prepared angel hair pasta, neither too firm nor too soft, and how creative of you to think of making a sauce out of course ground mustard and butter and olive oil, what insight in to the culinary world you must have had to make such an unlikely pair (tangy, yet smooth) harmonize. You, Brian, make the paradoxical divine. And the mushrooms(!): quickly sauteed in cajun spices,butter and olive oil to the point where they just became slightly crisp. You displayed particular foresight and aptitude when you threw the asparagus in at the last minute so that it would not be overcooked; after all we both know it takes longer to cook mushrooms than asparagus, even the thin kind which you know to be superior to the logs of asparagus that they sometime sell. As if it was not already a sauce befitting the most fastidious of palates, you added fresh and chopped roma tomatoes. How did you know the acidity of the tomatoes would complement so well such a daring dish? Did you not worry that the acidity of the tomatoes and the spice of the mustard combined would overpower the mushrooms' delicacy and drown out their subtle melody? I am bewildered at what a complex and virtuosic symphony you have composed.

I know these things must have been going through your head while it was stuck in the garbage bag. But please, in the interest of keeping peace among roommates, you must not dig in the garbage. I hope the coffee grounds were a nice addition to the dish.

Yours truly,

Brian