Have It Your Way

I don't like tomatoes. Never have, never will.

So, when I go to a burger joint and say, "No tomatoes, please," what I mean is that I don't want tomatoes on my hamburger cheeseburger. If I wanted tomato on my cheeseburger, I would not have said, "No tomatoes, please." It seems pretty simple.

And yet, there have been many times when I have been served my cheeseburger and I look under the hood and find those horrible, terrible, pink-ish, red-ish circles of disgust!

When I said "no tomatoes" what I meant was "NO TOMATOES!!!"

As a kid my Mom would always say, "You like ketchup, don't you?"

"Yes, Mom."

"And you like tomato sauce on pizza and spaghetti, don't you?"

"Yes, Mom."

Yes, but it's not the same thing! There is a big difference between the taste and texture of a tomato and the taste and texture of pizza sauce. (Or spaghetti sauce. Or ketchup.) (Or catsup, for that matter.) It's like saying you like peanut butter, but you don't like peanuts. That's okay. They are two different foods with two different tastes and two different textures. It's okay to like one but not the other.

But, it's more than just tomatoes. (If it stopped at tomatoes, The Wife would be very, very happy!)

Actually, when I order a cheeseburger I'll say, "No tomatoes or onions, please." I don't want onions on my cheeseburger.

"But you like onion rings, don't you?" Oh, just stop it! Yes, I like onion rings. And I like grilled onions on my patty melt. You see, I like cooked onions. In fact, I love cooked onions! But, I can't stand raw onions on my cheeseburger. Raw onions taste different. A raw onion can overpower everything around it, including the cheeseburger I'm trying to enjoy. (There is a reason raw onions make people cry!)

Of course, you can't talk about food that overpowers all the flavors around it without bringing up my arch-enemy: the green pepper! This is where The Wife and I have the most difference of opinion. She loves green peppers. Me? I loathe, hate and despise green peppers! With a passion!

For years I've had people who like green peppers on pizza tell me, "If you don't like them, just pick them off." That's nice, in theory. However, in practice, if you pick a green pepper off of the pizza, do you know what you have? You've got a pizza that still tastes like green pepper! It's impossible to "pick the green pepper off" because they are so horrible and insidious that they leave their smell and taste wherever they have been. (In that regard, they're like certain stinky truck drivers that I used to have to work with.)(Believe me, sometimes the smell never comes out of a chair.)

It's not just the green peppers I don't like. I'm also not fond of the red peppers, orange peppers, or yellow peppers, either. But, unlike their evil green cousins, the red, orange and yellow peppers aren't as infectious and invasive. They don't spread their taste and smell to everything else.

I don't like them, but at least they are better than their stinky green cousins.

This is where The Wife and I have reached a compromise. When I'm around, she doesn't cook anything with green peppers in it. Meanwhile, if she cooks anything with red, orange, or yellow peppers in it, I will eat it and not complain about the peppers. (Every once in a while I'll catch myself starting to complain. I've got to do better. Meanwhile, sometimes she'll be especially nice and keep the colored peppers out of my portion of the meal. Just the other day she kept the yellow peppers out of my omelet, and I was very appreciative.)(I think she was feeling sorry for me because of my kidney stones.)

But wait, there's more.

I don't like ice in my drink. There are many reasons for this, the main ones being:

1) I'm a guzzler, not a sipper.
2) Because I'm a guzzler, I don't need ice to keep the drink cold. (It'll be gone in just a few seconds.)
C) The added ice waters down my drink. (I ordered a root beer, not a root beer and water.)
D) I don't want ice slamming down into my face when I try to get the last of my drink.

The Wife can put some ice in a cup, put some drink in it, and sip on it for a day and a half. Not me. If I'm going to have a drink I want to have that drink. I'm going to drink that drink. If I don't have that drink dranked dranken droke drank drunk finished within five minutes, I must not have been very thirsty.

Putting ice in my drink means that I have to drink it with a straw (it's hard to guzzle with a straw) and/or I'm going to be straining the ice with my teeth, and I'll be left with a bunch of ice at the bottom of the cup when I'm finishing up.

Hey, there's still some root beer hiding down there in that ice!

I do not want that big bunch of ice, whether it be cubed, crushed or in some other weird form, to come shooting down the cup into my face when I tip the cup up to get the last of my drink! (And, dagnabbit, I am going to drink the last of my drink!) There's nothing quite like that wall of ice slamming into your nose while you try to get that last drop of beverage.

Here come the avalanche of ice to smash into my nose! (And yes, there's still root beer hiding in that ice!)

I'm sure everyone has some foods they want left off of their order. If you've got any that I didn't cover, I'd like to hear about them. (Unless it's bacon. I don't want to hear about anyone leaving bacon off of anything on purpose.)

So, hold the green peppers, please! (And if you are holding the green peppers, you'll want to wash your hands really good, because that smell with stay with you.)