Things I Wish I'd Never... (a miniseries)

Things I Wish I'd Never Eaten:

1) On the way back from my grandparent's ranch near College Station, my family stopped at Texas Burger for a meal. (They might have these things other places, but in case not, Texas Burger is exactly what it sounds like it would be - a burger joint that's a few steps up from Burger King but not quite as exciting as Fuddruckers - if you consider Fuddruckers to be exciting, which I don't.) Anyway, after the burgers we decided to treat ourselves to some ice cream before hitting the road. I was quite thrilled because they serve Blue Bell at Texas Burger and in my way of thinking, it doesn't get much better than that. I strolled up and down the ice cream counter carefully weighing my options and finally decided on Strawberry Cheesecake, the "special of the day." It was just as delicious as it sounds and I gobbled it right up in my sugar cone, glad I had branched out a bit from Homemade Vanilla and tried a new flavor. My brother Garrett had also ordered Strawberry Cheesecake. (Here's a tidbit to know - to this day, any time I'm eating somewhere with Garrett I HAVE to order the same thing he does, or I'm inevitably jealous of what he ordered. It makes things really simple because I don't have to decide what to get, and since he is a consistently good orderer, I'm rarely disappointed. So, come to think of it, maybe I didn't decide on Strawberry Cheesecake and simply took his lead like the lemming I am...)

Anyway, we had a delightful car trip and got home just in time to hit the sack. Or so we thought. Instead, Garrett and I stayed up most of the night puking our guts out. Yes, the "daily special" was apparently not so special after all, but rather was the culprit of our distress. Since that day, a spoonful of Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream has never darkened the door of my mouth. And I'm extremely suspicious of restaurants trying to unload their soon-to-be-expired/oops - we should have thrown this out yesterday dairy products onto unsuspecting customers under the guise of a "special." There ain't nothin' special about that.


2) About a year ago, K and I decided to go out to lunch at a new Thai place in town. We love Thai food and were very excited as we entered the restaurant and discovered a surprisingly beautiful atmosphere. I say surprising because this place is smack-dab in the middle of a strip mall, so I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of a hole-in-the-wall than the lavish decor we discovered when we stepped from the bright afternoon sun into the dimly lit elegance of the large room. We were the only customers, but since it was 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon I didn't find that very unusual. Surely no one had discovered this jewel of a restaurant... We were escorted to a lovely little table and the first thing that came out was our water. As often happens in town around this time of year, the water reeked of - well, I don't quite know what it is, but it reminds me of lake water. (I picture the boaters out on the lakes enjoying the summer, churning up the murky bottom and somehow getting silt into our drinking supply. I know this doesn't make sense scientifically, and I've since heard that it's due to some sort of algae bloom, but you get the point - this water is NASTY.) I asked for a bowl of lemons, as I often do at restaurants, and found myself squeezing each slice down to a pulp in an attempt to make this water taste a bit more like lemons and a bit less like lake. When I commented to the waitress about the water (in attempt to make friendly conversation about what happens to the city's water this time of year) she seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. I thought: either she doesn't speak enough English to know what I just said, she hasn't been in town for a year yet and doesn't know that this happens every summer, or she thinks this water is acceptably tasty. I hoped it was one of the first two assumptions.

When they brought out the menus, it really drove the point home that this was NOT a hole-in-the-wall. Yikes-a-moley!!! I instantly wanted to get up and leave, not wanting to spend our eating-out budget for the whole weekend on this one meal, but K would never be that rude, so we stayed. We ordered Pad Thai, a standard menu item at most Thai restaurants and one we had become fond of at some of our favorite haunts. When it came out, I caught the first whiff and my nostrils flared. (In actuality, my nostrils cannot flare, but if they could have, they would have.) My first thought - dog food. Oh my gosh, this smells just like dog food. How am I going to eat this? Surely this will not taste like it smells. Bravely, I spun a few noodles onto my fork and lifted this pungent pile to my mouth for the first bite. The moment it hit my tongue, I knew things were not going to turn out well. Embarassingly, my gag reflex took over. I sat for a few horrifying seconds trying to decide what to do with this mound of manure in my mouth. Would my body allow me to swallow? As it turns out, it would not. I leaned over and, with an effort to be graceful, spit it out onto my plate.

Since I'm not three years old, this was extremely humiliating. I am about the least picky eater I know, and I have never been known to spit anything out other than the occasional gristle in my meat. Gristle, yes - but noodles? How can anyone ruin noodles? K apparently has the ability to put mind over matter, because he had somehow managed to swallow his first bite. He even took a couple more bites, trying to be polite while commenting the whole time on how grotesque this meal was. I just sat there breathing through my mouth, unable to take in the dog food odor while I stared at my pile of noodles and the smaller pile of rejected food sitting on my plate. I wanted to send it back to the kitchen, tell them it was gross and I couldn't eat it, get my money back and go out to eat elsewhere for dinner. But K is entirely too nice for that. We asked for our check and tried not to notice the confused looks on the faces of the staff (all attention was focused on us, mind you, as we were the only customers dining) as we turned down their offer for a to-go box and left nearly all of our noodles (and literally all, in my case) sitting on our plates.

The most painful part, aside from the gagging, was the knowledge that we had just turned over good money for nothing. We were still hungry, only we couldn't go out to eat anywhere else. We ended up at home eating sandwiches or something equally disappointing. Yep, that's got to be at the top of my list of things I wish I'd never eaten.