wings, medium

The bar is nearly empty. The last flight in this section of the airport will board in about 20 minutes, and there are only two people in the bar. I am taking down the bottles, cleaning them, and stacking them on a cart to put into the locking cabinet in back.
"Excuse me," he says. The two customers are sitting at a table out in front of the bar. I come and lean over the bar to hear him. "What's the bleu cheese for?" He gestures at the container of bleu cheese that came with the plate of wings he and his friend are sharing.
I blink. His companion is rolling his eyes. I can see that the container is open and they've been dipping things in it, as one does. "You... dip... things in it," I say, a little lost.
"What do you dip in it?"
"Well," I say, "if the wings are too hot, the bleu cheese is a good way to cool them down. Stops the burning."
"You dip what in it?" he says, amused. "Did you say wings?"
"Well," I say, "yes, you can dip the wings in there."
"This fella was trying to tell me it's for celery only," he says.
"You can dip the celery in too," I say diplomatically.

Obviously they have known one another for some time, and they continue to make fun of one another while they finish the plate of wings. "You know this guy doesn't even know the national anthem?" says the wing dipper. The celery dipper rolls his eyes more. "He can sing you the Canadian national anthem but not the American one. What do you say to that?"
"I say there's nothing wrong with being Canadian," I say.
"He's not! He's from Rhode Island!"
I consider that a moment. "Well," I say, trying to assess whether it's rude to call someone Canadian who isn't.
"You stoppit," says the celery dipper to his friend, but without real irritation.
I clear the empty plate of wings from the table. "The wings are all about tolerance," I say. "We have to tolerate one another's ways. Some of us prefer to dip our wings, and some prefer to dip just the celery. But it's not like one prevents the other. We all do our own thing and we ought to respect one another's choices. We all have to live our own lives, right?" I am saying this partly because the un-American celery dipper is the one who has picked up the check folder.


They leave a nice tip. At home, I tell my roommate, a native of the city where hot wings were invented, about the incident, but before I tell him how the conversation went, he says, "The bleu cheese? It's for dipping the celery in."
I pause. "Not the wings?"
He laughs. "You can dip the wings in there if you want but the old-fashioned places, they serve you carrots and celery, and you dip them in the bleu cheese."
"You're not supposed to dip the wings in there?" I am distressed that I steered the conversation wrong. I never had a chicken wing until I was grown, so what do I know of tradition?
He shrugs. "Some places serve the wing sauce on the side, too. You dip the wings in the sauce, the carrots in the dressing."
"But I've seen you dip your wings in the bleu cheese!"
"Yeah," he said. "You can do what you want, really. It's just wings."