Buds are burning

It didn't taste funny to me.

And therein lies the problem.

We sat down last night for a sweet, Rockwellian family dinner at the parental in-law units compound. Green beans, Caesar salad and hamburgers; the cornerstone of any all-American meal. But the meal could have been comprised of chicken turds, cat piss dressing on a scraps of moldy cabbage and dried scorpions and I would have been happy as I'm wont to binge eat after a hard few hours of napping after work. I had every intention yesterday of working out - I even pulled on the workout attire - but once dressed I don't remember what happened. I'm going with the theory that the bed chloroformed me, thus knocking me out before I made it to the gym. When Wife, who also fell victim the chloroform-attacking bed, and I finally pulled ourselves away from the mattresses' tentacles mom-in-law was calling us over for our gourmet, Ronald Reagan and Apple Pie meal.

We all went bunless - between the four of us we couldn't find any hamburger buns - which was fine by me because I didn't want the bread (nevermind that I had a muffin the size of a lunar lander at the prison work camp this morning) and I doused it with a hefty dose of mustard. It looked tasty, and it was tasty until mom-in-law spoke.

"Does this burger taste funny."

Wife, who's battling a sinus thingy, didn't answer. Dad-in-law shrugged. Myself, I kept tossing the meat down like it was my last meal. I'll admit, the meat was funny tasting, and not ha-ha, tickle in your throat funny, but more like "if you take another bite me you'll hurl up your gall bladder by 8 tonight" funny.

But I couldn't stop myself. Dad-in-law pushed his burger away, Wife tossed her fork across the room and ran for the Listerine, hoping to kill every stomach-eating nugget of bacteria that was sliding down her throat like it was giant slip-and-slide. Mom-in-law suggested Fuddruckers to finish off dinner. And I kept piling the burger down until Wife grabbed a broom handle and pushed the plate out of fork's reach from me.

Funny-tasting food doesn't scare me. Fear Factor contestants can't hold a candle to my gut. Give me turtle tongue with a side of monkey nuts and I'll throw each bite down the gullet like it's lobster tail and jelly beans. Aside from olives (the fruit the devil, really ) my taste buds haven't met a food it doesn't like. Hell, I've been known to eat turkey sausage that has been tried by everyone at the table, including myself, accepted its foul tasting and then proceed to finish the offending turkey wiener. Why? Because it's there, plus we have starving folks in East Phoenix who'd pay top money for a link of breakfast sausage that tastes like a dog just farted on it.

So, when mom-in-law asked me if I thought the burger taste bad, my only response was, "if you bad as in metallic with a scent of rotted citrus, then yeah, it taste bad, but don't tell my taste buds, they think it's fine."

And while the three of them were deciding on Fuddruckers, I proceeded to snarf down the salad green beans for fear the hazmat crew would come in and steal those plates as well. I'll be damned if I was going to lose out on green stuff, too, be it lettuce or algae-covered oleander leaves disguised as salad.