A little Italian cheese – Hive and Nest
It’s just as I suspected after my happy post yesterday. Nobody is interested in me when my life is good. You only want the embarrassing/bitter/snotty Jennie. Will do!
Here is a nice little story for you: it will make me sound utterly unsophisticated because it’s about food, and in that category I am utterly unsophisticated. Basically I don’t like food with very strong flavors (except Funyons). I like to think it’s because of my ultra sensitive taste buds but it’s probably just due to a dislike of new things and immaturity (hey, I just admitted to eating Funyons. And I don’t just eat them; I love them.)
There are certain foods that I just can’t stand because of their potency: sourdough bread (it tastes like stinky socks), sushi (I hate anything that tastes like the ocean. Even the sushi that Arianne and Mister both claimed was so good it tasted like candy. Um, candy is the one word I would not use to describe food containing octopus tentacles and fish eggs), and many cheeses (parmesan being one of the more offensive. I usually don’t mind parmesan in dishes where it blends in and adds to the overall tone. But if I can smell it, it grosses me out). Which brings me to my story.
Mister and I went on a cruise for part of our honeymoon. It was warm and tropical and lovely, but after a while I started feeling sick. I’m not a seasick kind of girl, having spent much time on my dad’s sailboat in my younger years, but I sure wasn’t feeling great on my cruise. Toward the end of the voyage I started feeling so crappy that I couldn’t get out of bed. And usually when I feel sick the only thing that sounds good to me is hot buttered noodles. So Mister went down to the dining room and had the cooks rustle me up a plate of pasta. The waiter was nice enough to deliver it right to my bedside, and with a flourish he whisked the silver dome off of the plate. And there were my hot buttered noodles covered in parmesan!
I promptly vomited all over. All I could think was, “I can’t believe I’m throwing up in front of my new husband!” (Nevermind the waiter standing there too.) I swear I’m not some sort of babyish, melodramatic drama queen. Even if I were, puking is not the kind of attention-getting stunt I’d pull. Believe me! It’s just that the parmesan was so strong. And I was already feeling awful. It was simply the last straw.
The next day I started peeing blood and it turned out that I had a raging kidney infection and had to get an antibiotic shot in my bum from the ship’s doctor (another humiliation in front of my new husband). By then the magic had worn off and Mister was probably already regretting his decision to marry me. But he got over it and we’ve been together almost eighteen years since then. Sadly, I haven’t gotten over it so parmesan and I have had to go our separate ways. I’m afraid of experiencing some sort of post-traumatic stress episode in the middle of the Olive Garden.