This week, I opened a novel with an interesting premise: a black family moves to a research institute housed in a grand old mansion, in exchange for teaching sign language to a chimpanzee.

Can such a thing be done? Would you read on to find out?

Well, I would.

The chimp was volatile. Offer a banana and he might chuck it back at you, hard.

The passages on black life in America, as told by a teenage daughter, were illuminating.

Then, suddenly, the teenage daughter made a friend at school, another black female. Before I knew it, these two girls were horizontal and engaged in monkey business far beyond what they promised on the book jacket. Oh, so we’re going there, are we?

It was a bait and switch, I tell you.

So I’m gonna do the same to you, a bait and switch. You thought you were getting a book post tonight, didn’t you? Nope, sorry. I’m going to show off this Neopolitan Cake.

It’s good, but it needs ice cream.

In the background, you see Veggie Tortilla Pinwheels (except I didn’t cut them up into bite-sized pieces) and Kirkland’s Tomato Bisque.

Bait & Switch Photo credit: mikepetrucci on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-SA