Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Cheese Balls: The Snack (not a medical condition)

Originally posted: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 10:35am

Alternate title: My selfish alter-ego

For Halloween my mom gave Husband and I a ONE POUND drum of cheese balls/puffs (meant to resemble pumpkins or something). One pound doesn't sound like much, but think of how light those things are. It's like the size of a sparkletts jug.

We have so many we've been using them to barter with. Ex: We gave a friend a baggy of cheese puffs to borrow two of her movies. Cheese balls could be the currency of the future, should the economy continue in a downslide...

And people get really excited about cheese puffs. Like everybody wants one or two as soon as they see that you've got some. But you look like a selfish jerk if you only give someone one or two cheese balls even if they only ask for one or two (I mean, who can't spare a handful of a cheap snack?), but I'm REALLY covetous of certain food. Luckily, cheese balls are the kind of thing that I realize I will get sick of pretty quickly. As soon as all that processed cheese dust and the deep-fried dough puffs start to build a layer of glutinous, sodium-filled jelly in my stomach... I'm done and ready to share. But sometimes I don't want to share food.

Like, usually, I love to feed people. I will give you tons of home-cooked food. I'll make several dishes and want you to stuff yourself on them, but if I go to the store and find some snack food that I REALLY want, and then I get it... I'm like freaking Golum hiding in some cave with the "One Snack." I think everybody else wants it, too, so I eat it secretly where no one will see and ask for some.

I try and keep this covetousness a secret. Husband only recently found this out with grape juice. It's a guilty pleasure, since it's kinda expensive as far as juice goes. I have to limit how much I drink or I will make myself disgustingly ill on it. And like I said, I get kinda manic about it, like, even *how* I drink it. Grape juice must be sipped. Must. Otherwise you miss the full spectrum of delicious flavor. Well, a few weeks back, we got two 64oz containers of grape juice from Costco. I thought I was going to cry I was so happy about all that juice. I quickly imagined how, if I paced myself, I could make it last a long time.

When we got it home, I immediately poured myself a glass; so did Husband. I hadn't calculated his consumption into my grape juice forecast. I tried to let it go, thinking of how silly it was wanting to have all the grape juice for myself. I sipped my cup of juice: it was fantastic; incredibly flavorful; like an old friend it was familiar and yet I hadn't had any in a while, so the taste was refreshing. Slowly sipping and savoring, I was entering a sort of meditation with my grape juice. Then I heard a horrifying noise: *glumph**glorb**glumph*

"NO!" I cried out unexpectedly. Husband was GULPING down his glass of grape juice. That oaf was reverse-vomiting the precious nectar of my delight. I snatched his glass from him before he could finish off what little juice remained in it. I was another person, it seemed.

"What are you DOING?!" my mouth surprised me by talking, "You can't CHUG the grape juice!"

I must have really shocked Husband because he just stood there with his eyes popped open about as big as I've seen them. He was biting his lips together and his hand was still curled around some phantom cup in midair-- everything had happened so fast, and surely he hadn't expected to be attacked just then.

I explained how it needed to be sipped, savored, about the spectrum of delicious flavor, the nirvana... I started to hear how ridiculous I was. And Husband was still standing there looking really sheepish before he burst out laughing and promised that he would "sip from now on." While he conceded that it was unquestionably better when sipped, I felt bad enough about letting my Golum alter-ego surface that I told him he could chug it if he wanted to and I wouldn't attack him again... He still seems too afraid to do that, though, because whenever he drinks the grape juice now, he always casts furtive glances my way as he sips. Secretly, I am pleased.

Now you know more about my selfish alter-ego.

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