The Prime (Rib In a Bowl) of Miss Jean Brodie

Soup goes in bowls.

Chili goes into bowls, too-- as does guac and salad (though that goes on small plates, too, but if you've got any good quantity of it, you're going to be jonesing for that bowl) and shredded cheese that you will then put on nachos.

Hey, speaking of nachos? Bowl.

You would be hard-pressed to put sour-cream dip and potato chips on a plate. I mean, that's just silly. You put that shit in a bowl, because it's, well, right.

You know what's not right? Putting meat in a bowl.

Oh, America. Sometimes you're so silly-- pretending it's normal to put meat in a bowl. Imagining that society will wantonly accept the fact that it will now be socially acceptable to consume meat with... a spoon?

Meat with a spoon? Get outta my pants! We don't even know each other that well yet!

Wawa, easily the creme de la creme of convenience food purveyors in my neck o' de woods, Mr. Boss-man, is in the throes of trying to convince us that we are not descending down a peg or two on the evolutionary ladder by consuming appreciable quantities of meat that are now coming to you live, via satellite, in bowl format.

There's a very large billboard where I-676 meets I-76 encouraging us to purchase

PRIME RIB: SHORTI (that's a small hoagie to you foreigners) OR BOWL: $3.99.

Prime rib. In a bowl.

Does that seem wrong to you? If it doesn't, maybe you ought to un-follow me, just like former Apron-lover 191, who fucked off yesterday, presumably because s/he is a fan of York Peppermint Patties.

Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!

Now, getting back to beef in a bowl: I admit that I consume some food of questionable virtues. I get it. I've been to all-you-can-eat sushi buffets. I've been to non-ironic smorgasbords in Lancaster County where they serve, much to my genteel vegetarian wife's horror, bacon dressing. I've eaten triple-decker sandwiches. Pork roll. Scrapple. Just as Jesus may have died on the cross for you, more animals than I can count have perished from this earth in the interest of winding up in the southeastern Pennsylvania sewer system after being forcibly ejected from my brittle little body.

You know who's supposed to eat meat out of a bowl?




I mean, that makes sense to me. But... I don't know. Prime rib. People meat? In a bowl? For $3.99?

Something says to me that this is beyond the pale.

"I mean-- who are they kidding?" my wife said to me on the way home from a downtown theatre outing one night, the gargantuan billboard illuminated by the moon and the auxiliary lighting at its base, "that is just the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."

There was a momentary pause as I checked her with my peripheral vision.

"Oh-- yeah. Yeah, that's, um, that is just awful."

Another pause, this one more tense.

"Promise me you will never eat that," Mrs. Apron said.

My eyes flicked momentarily up and to the right. Classic.

"I promise."

That was months ago, and I've kept my promise, even after winning a $10.00 Wawa giftcard at work as part of a "Good Catch Award" for noticing that a deranged elderly patient had turned his oxygen concentrator up from 2 liters per minute to 6, which could have blown his lungs out.

I've spent some of the money on coffee-- a breakfast sandwich. But nothing in a bowl.

Because bowls are what you put soup into. Bowls are for sick people food. Broth and other things that look (and smell vaguely) of piss.

Because the USDA shouldn't be allowing us citizens to consume meat (especially in bowl format) that costs less than a barely fancy large cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Because, at The Prime Rib: The Civilized Steakhouse, real prime rib goes for $45.95, and while that may seem excessive, I'll bet it's fucking worth it. And they ought to know their prime rib, seeing as it's their name.

And I'll bet they put that motherfucker on a plate. A big one.

Can I Get You to Read a Post About Dog Shit?

Typically, I'm not terribly into setting challenges for myself.

Sometimes, however, I get kind of into it. The excitement, the thrill, the dipping of the toe into the pool of the unknown, the uncertain outcome-- will I succeed? Will I bellyflop onto the murky pool of life wearing a pair of "BUDWEISER" swimtrunks?

Gee, I don't know. But it'll be fun finding out.

Since my wife and I adopted Molly, our lives have increasingly revolved around dog shit. Finley, being an elder statesman of sorts, is predictable and reliable and knows that vacating the contents of his bowels occurs outside. Molly, being an impish puppy, hasn't really grasped that point yet. Oftentimes, when I enter a room she has been in unsupervised for any length of time greater than two minutes, my eyes furtively scan the floor for mini-muffins or the rug for scat streaks. We have a stalwart supply of rug cleaners/pet stain remover products under our kitchen sink, and it is with these tools that we do battle with our 24-pound puppy who is slowly but surely making me obsessed with shit, in much the same way that a 15-year-old boy is obsessed with the red-head down the street, his own penis, and becoming a meteorologist.

In case you've never lived in suburbia before, I would like to warn you that, if you ever do decide to make the great white move, you will become gradually or instantly obsessed with dog shit, depending on your level of consciousness. Also depending, of course, on whether or not you own a dog. If you don't own a dog, trust me, you will still become obsessed with dog shit-- it will just be the dog shit emanating from the bungholes of other people's dogs. My suburban guilt meter is positively off-the-charts, such that as soon as either of my dogs' rear legs start to bend, I am swooping down with the plastic bag, beginning to catch shit before it even hits the grass.

Yes, I have been known to catch dog shit in the space between my dog's asshole and the ground. Mid-air. The space between. Take that, Dave Matthews. Defying gravity. Take that, Elphaba.

Of course, I feel my diligence slipping now that I have two dogs. When walking them together, I'm not able to be as agile, as coordinated, as graceful. I love when they cross paths and lace me up like a fucking Victorian corset with their leashes. That's classic. If the shit-filled plastic bag gets squeezed in between leashes, it's even better. If the bag rips: instant classic. Just bust out those cameraphones and say "YouTube!"

My wife and I try not to be brand-whores when going to the market. For instance, we're pretty diverse when buying "chocolate sandwich cookies." We won't really eat Oreos, because they have gross things in them (seriously, check it out. Like, octopus bits and shit), and our favorites are Newman O's, but we'll buy Tuxedo cookies or even the store brand if we're really hard up. Even if the creme in the middle is sickly-sweet or if the cookie part is a little chalky, we get through it. We care even less when it comes to dog food. And, really: why should we? Molly eats wristwatch bands and her own shit, and Finley prefers soymilk and broccoli, so why should we sweat Purina vs Science Diet? We don't notice any difference in the shininess of our dogs' coats, the sweetness or foulness of their breath, the vavaciousness of their jump, the decibel of their bark or the springiness of their step no matter what we feed them.

Maybe that just makes us assholes. I don't know.

My wife recently bought a bag of "Kibbles & Bits." I have finally noticed a change in our dogs. The name of this particular dog food should be called "Kibbles & Mountains." The sheer amount of fecal matter that this food produces in our dogs is nothing short of elephantine. I am thinking of obtaining a Class D license so that I can follow our dogs while driving a front-end loader. As if the quantity increase wasn't bad enough, it has also tinted their shit seafoam green. Which is just wrong.

Thank you, my loves, for reading a post about dog shit. I don't know for whom this speaks the worse: you or I.