This one is not for children, or the faint of heart.
On Saturday, we held a movie night. Before the films, we ate chili, which once again necessitated my wife making two batches: one dumbed down, onionless version for her husband and one “normal” version for everyone else. She does this because she had witnessed me at my least mature, which means she has seen me bite into a “sneaky” onion, and seen the disturbing effect it had on me. You see, I hate onions. Passionately. The onion is the worst of the foods which I dislike, in large part due to the fact that people try to hide them away in just about half of the dishes that they cook. Green peppers, which are about on par with the onion, taste-wise, in my book, don’t hide. They’re boisterous, obvious additions to any dish, and thus are easier to avoid. Not so with the onion…
This got me to thinking. Reminiscing if you will. I recalled one instance in particular, from many, many years ago, wherein my complete and utter disdain for this so-called flavor enhancer reared its ugly head at a particularly poor time and place. I had been invited to a social gathering. One where I knew the hosts, but not too well. They were the type to truly entertain their guests, with well-considered appetizers and a plethora of drink options. I arrived with a date, also not. It wasn’t our first time out, but it was early enough that I had not yet exposed her to all of my quirks and foibles. We mingled, drank sparingly, and took advantage of the tasty appetizers, my favorite of which were some tasty little mini-baguette pizzas. Lightly browned cheese and a little salami or pepperoni on top. Yummy.
Still, I had envisioned more in the way of food, and my stomach was still rumbling a bit as we sat down at their dining room table to play some cards. It was then that our hostess asked if anyone would like some more mini-pizzas. Mine was not the only hand that shot up, and she removed herself to the kitchen to whip up a few more morsels. By the time she returned, I was losing at cards and all too happy to take a short food break.
The baguette that she handed me was different. Longer, fuller and piping hot. I didn’t care, taking the first bite with reckless abandon in what can only be described as a rookie mistake. For about two seconds, I was in heaven, enjoying the melted cheese and crunchy bread, already wondering if there would be enough pizza for me to have another. And then I bit into the onion. That carefully concealed bastard. It hid out beneath the cheese, long and slimy, just waiting to attack. My gag reflex kicked in immediately, and it was all I could do to not spit it back out onto the table. I stopped my bite, but it was too late. The onion was in my mouth, working its evil magic on my defenseless taste buds.
It was too big a bite to pull off the old “wash it down quickly with a drink” trick, and I couldn’t bring myself to chew any further, so I sat there, helplessly. I turned away from my date as my eyes began to water, and took the only out that I had, snatching my napkin from the table and pretending to cough as I dislodged the offending hunk of pizza. Yeah, pretty gross. But not as gross as an onion, I say! I quickly glanced about the table, sure that accusing eyes would be staring me down from every direction. It wasn’t so. No one seemed to have noticed my painfully immature reaction. Certainly not my date, who smiled at me and gave my knee a little squeeze. Even as I returned her smile, my mind was formulating an escape plan. In my hands, the evidence sat, wrapped in a napkin. On my plate, the rest of the baguette sat, silently mocking me. I needed to dispose of both.
I considered the kitchen first. Surely there was a trash can there that could be easily located. Under the sink, most likely. But our excellent host and hostess continued to hop up and fill drinks, making a successful, undiscovered foray a shaky prospect. Then the beer hit me. No, I wasn’t drunk, but I needed to make a run to the toilet, and inspiration was hot on the heels of this revelation. There would be a lock. Maybe a trashcan. Or the porcelain beast itself. I could flush the evidence, and none would be wiser to my pathetic little reaction. Of course, it never occurred to me to simply own up to the problem. Perhaps oversell it a bit, with some reference to a mild allergy. No, nothing would do but that I simply bull forward and convince everyone that I was a normal, onion loving guy. Just like everyone else!
I waited for an opportune moment and slipped the remaining baguette off of the table and into my napkin. Still good. I then asked where the restroom was, but did not immediately get up to visit it, but instead sipped at my beer for another few, key moments until heads again turned away from me and back to the game. Sure it was safe, I stood up and deftly hid the offending food and napkin as I walked out of the room and down the hall to the toilet. I locked the door behind me, took a deep breath of relief and splashed some water on my face. Everything was going to be alright…
But then, I panicked. There was no trash can. And the idea of flushing the food suddenly seemed a poor choice. What if some floated back up? Or worse, it got stuck? I imagined a room full of guests, hovering around as our host plunged out the offending baguette, then all eyes slowly turning my way in accusation. No, that would never do. But I couldn’t just saunter back into the dining room with my napkin-wrapped pizza, either. Then I noticed the window. It was a small, frosted glass portal above the bathtub. I did a quick mental calculation and assured myself that it was facing the back yard. Pizza is all-natural, I reasoned. It would soon decompose. No one the wiser. At least, no one who could pin it on me in front of my date. I decided to go for it. The window would only open a few inches, so I wasn’t able to give my evidence a good throw, but merely drop it out. I closed the window, washed up and returned to the party, both my conscience and hands clean.
My first inkling of trouble came just a few short minutes later, when my date asked me to grab her another beer from the fridge. For the first time, I walked to my hosts’ kitchen and noticed the sliding screen door. The one that led out to their balcony. Their balcony in the back yard. I started to sweat. My hands grew clammy and my heart sped up as I returned to the game. Sure enough, not ten minutes later one of our players announced that he was “going out back for a quick smoke.” Still, what was I worried about, really? Surely one couldn’t see the pizza from the balcony. Surely it was a full floor down, resting on the ground, comfortably out of view on anyone but the most intrepid backyard explorer. But I had to know for sure.
Without a smoker’s ready-made excuse, I was forced to blurt out something about “joining him to check out the view,” which was another mistake, as it led to a full-fledged break in the action as a full four additional guests, including my date, decided that this indeed was a good idea, and they should tag along.
Crap.
I had about a three second head start. I pretended not to notice that my date was one of the tag-alongs and sped up my gait, stepping out onto the wooden balcony barely a step ahead of the original smoker. There it was. There was the window. There was that damned frosted window that I couldn’t see out of. The window that opened not over the back yard, but over the impressively long balcony that ran most of the length of the wall. And there was my pizza, sitting, accusing, in full view, in plain sight, not twenty feet away, atop a pot of bushy flowers.
Double crap.
I made some comment about the sunset and the woods. Or maybe the trees. Something. Anything to draw away the attention of the persons who came clambering out onto the balcony after me. And I slowly edged my way towards the pizza, taking care never to look directly at it, but always off in the distance, enjoying the view that I would have, on any other occasion, described as something between mediocre and pleasant. My date kept right up with me, of course, matching every hesitant sidle, until we both stood directly in front of the pizza bush. The others stayed in a cluster near the door, allowing me just enough breathing space to reach back with my left arm, while my right lay wrapped around my date’s shoulder, and grab at the pizza. Eventually, I managed to knock it from its perch atop the bush, presumably to land behind it. I dared not peek.
The smoker finished. The others decided that they’d had enough of the “view.” Now was my chance to close this chapter once and for all. I walked back into the house with my date, then mumbled some nonsense about “possibly forgetting my sunglasses.” Or maybe it was my wallet. Some lame excuse to return to the balcony without her. I ran to the bush, leaned over to grab the pizza beneath it, glanced about once more to be sure that there were no prying eyes about, and gave it a good heave towards the woods. I don’t think it quite made it there, but it surely went far enough to avoid discovery until the next lawn mowing. For a second, as it hung there in the sky, I imagined a crow sweeping down from the sky to pluck it clean from the sky and return it to the balcony, or perhaps fly straight into the kitchen with it. But no such thing happened. I was clear and free to continue my evening, sans worry.
Did I mention that I don’t like onions?
