meatball encounter

I love going out to eat. Some poke fun of my bachelor refrigerator, stalked only with condiments and fruit (not to go together of course), or my frozen dinners tucked safely away in the freezer for midnight meals…and yes…the truth is, I don’t cook. At all. I microwave. I have the fastest draw in the east.  My fingers beep-beep and produce a warm whatever-night-meal better than Betty Crocker herself. Ok, that last part isn’t true, but it sounded good. I can cook. At least, I can read directions. The point is; I love going out to eat. And do so often.

Being a vegetarian, I’ve never really had a problem; there’s always something on the menu…some places are better than others…yadda-yadda. However, in all my years of veggie ordering, I’ve never had a situation quite like this:

My step-mother and I were having lunch at a quaint Italian bistro. 

I order a pasta dish with veggies. 

We continue to talk and catch up until our lunch comes. 

Looks delicious: small bowl with pasta heaping over it. 

I bite into it and decide I will need a bigger plate (we're going to need a bigger boat). 

My eyes scan over and see only broccoli and mushrooms, pasta and olives (force of habit). 

I have already taken a few bites. At this time the larger plate comes and I pour the pasta onto it. As the pasta comes toppling down, I see entangled with it, five enormous gray, chunky balls of cow. I immediately shriek and jump back. I have already ingested the pasta which has touched, and been cooked, and been rolled around in the juices of the slaughtered moo-cow. My jaw drops and I realize what has just occurred. My stomach curdles. My face goes white. It has been 17 years. I look at the plate and see the gray, lumpy, gristly meatballs on my plate. It is too late. There is nothing I can do. This is a tragedy of immense proportions. A moment of silence please.

While I realize, this is in part, a comical story to many, and written as such, (also admittedly, even I was laughing hours later)…the actual moment, was not. Anything that is personal, anything that one person believes so deeply in, and lives their life in accordance to, when another interferes with that, it is quite jarring.

So, this was my meatball encounter. I’m surprised there haven’t been more. This is not to say it will keep me from dining out, or rather an impetus to learn to cook. Heavens no. As long as the meat is on the plate next to me and not on my plate, everything is just peachy.