Hi, I'm Disgusting. Nice to Meet You.

On Thursday, my wife was leaving the house for an appointment, and the age-old question of "What do you want for dinner?" was hanging in the air like a long... dangly thing.

My wife, as she grabbed her go-bag, reminded me of the small, Italian market we used to go to rather frequently two neighborhoods ago.

"Holy cocks!" I said, with typical eloquence and aplomb, "I totally forgot about that fucking place. Let's do it."

It's teeny-tiny, and every breathable inch of space is taken up by sumptuous, delectable comestibilities. Everything that isn't canned is made on location, live, before a studio audience.

Lobster ravioli

Garlic sausage

Bevilacqua (or some shit) sauce

Meatballs in meatsauce, with some meat on the side

Bacon cheddar burgers

Lots of unbelievable looking Italian shit I can't pronounce or remember

(This, children, is why I am not a food writer.)

Anyway, my eyes glazed over the instant I walked into this place. It was 5:24 when I arrived, and they close at 6:00, so it was jammin' with teased up, underworked tennis wives picking up fru-fru food for their philanderers.

I blindly picked and pawed at items that appealed to some of my baser instincts (read: need. for. flesh.) Here's what I got for my vegetarian wife:

1/2 pound of vegetable risotto
1/2 pound of sun-dried tomato (I know, it's not 1994 anymore) farfalle

Here's what I got for meatnormous, motherlovin' me:

A half-pound of meatballs in meatsauce
1.65 pounds of baked Grouper

Total cost for "dinner, honey": $41.62.

Oops.

As I walked out into the parking lot, carrying my rather heavy bag of swag, I muttered under my breath, "Yes, world-- this is what happens when you send me out to do errands. Unsupervised."

See, I'm not the stereotypical husband who gets sent to the supermarket for pimento olives and comes back with kumquats. I'm not brain-dead, I just think with my food-dick. I get what looks, smells, and (probably) tastes good. I don't care what it costs. Doesn't interest me in the slightest. Because no meal is as important as the one I am currently shopping for and/or am about to eat.

When my wife came back from her appointment, dinner was prepared. She was in the process of having a regular old heart-to-heart with her sister on the phone, so I kept the massive quantities of food warm while she talked outside on the porch. When Mrs. Apron came inside, it was time for a heart-to-heart with me. I prepared myself for this by putting the entirety of the 1.65 pounds of Grouper onto my plate. And some of the risotto. And, later, some of the farfalle. Halfway through my meal I stopped the serious conversation to state,

"Eating this all in one go is not smart."

"You don't have to eat all of it, you know," my wife wisely stated, her rationales and logic completely and comfortingly devoid of mentions of swollen-bellied Indian children and West African street urchins.

"I know."

"But you probably will," she concluded. I shoved some more Grouper into my vacuum mouth.

"Mmpf-hmmpf."

As we climbed into bed later that night I turned to her and said,

"Gee, I hope I don't throw up on you tonight."

"Me, too," replied my darling wife.

I was somewhat alarmed when I awoke at precisely 4:00am on Friday morning, my forehead and lower back glistening with sweat. When I was younger, 4:30am was Throw-Up Time. When I vomited, it always happened at 4:30am. It was like curtain time for my blarchges. I could feel things moving up and down my esophagus, things that I could only assume were Grouper-like in nature, swimming up the canal towards the basin that is my mouth.

"What a fucking pig," I thought to myself as I propped myself up in bed, "Over a pound-and-a-half of fish. I deserve what's about to happen to me."

But, in the end, nothing happened to me. I got up, I peed, and I went back to sleep. The Grouper knew no revenge upon me, and my wife passed another night of not getting vomited on. I went to school with a girl who, according to popular legend, at least, was getting drilled doggy-style and the inebriated gentleman doing the drilling vomited all over her back. That's the kind of thing that happens in college. You don't marry someone and then throw up on them, either during sex or just after a raucous night of Grouperage.

One thing's for sure, though. I can't wait to hit those motherfucking meatballs.