Sunday, June 17, 2012

Concerning Black Licorice and Mr. Pibb

As I write this blog my wife is making me a Father’s Day lunch.  We (she) settled on homemade meatball subs and we just returned from a trip to Target to buy all the ingredients that we were missing at the house (which is just about everything on the ingredients list).  She asked me last night what I wanted for my Father’s Day dinner and was narrowing it down to meatballs of some sort.  I swayed her from Swedish meatballs to meatball subs.  I originally tried to talk her out of making anything special and that led to another discussion.  Before I get to that topic though I want to provide a little background and tie in the title of this blog post.

When I was in my teens I would get upset whenever someone (usually my mother) would want to share any drink that I had.  This sharing mostly occurred while driving somewhere in the car.  I have this habit of measuring how much more enjoyment that I have left based on the amount of liquid left in the cup.  I know at any given time them about how much more enjoyment I have left.  When someone decides they want a drink then the equation is upset in that pleasure is leaving one side of the equation but pleasure it not going to the other side (my side) of the equation.  I discovered that the amount of drink I had to share varied based solely on the flavor of the drink.  After much research I found out that Mr. Pibb was the optimum drink since my mom really did not like the flavor and she would only ask for a drink if she was truly thirsty.  Thus Mr. Pibb became my official drink and I ordered it whenever there was a chance that I might have to share.

My “love” of black licorice has a similar background only it occurred after I had kids.  Any candy in the house is fair game (I learned this rule the hard way several times) but certain types of candy seemed to last longer than others.  Through trial and error I discovered that candy like Good-n-Plenty of just plain licorice was the best candy to have to maximize the amount that I ate of the overall portion.

With either of these things I think I am not really getting maximum enjoyment.  I prefer several soft drinks to Mr. Pibb and licorice is not even in the top 100 of my favorite candies but I still consider them when I am given a choice in either of these categories  On a side note, Mr. Pibb and Good-n-Plenty together is just awful.

So, as you might have guessed, when I was thinking about my potential Father’s Day dinner, I was thinking of something that I like that no one else particularly cares for and thus would allow me to have more.  This is the discussion that I mentioned in paragraph 1 of this post.  The problem with meatballs is that everyone likes them.  I joked that since she loves meatballs very much that perhaps Father’s Day was simply the excuse for making them.  The initial look on her face indicated that I might be more right than she would care to admit.  This look was followed up with another “look” that I need not define further to you husbands out there.  I mentioned that she is making meatballs as I type this up so you already know how the story ends.  I ended up giving up on thinking of another meal that only I like as she likes almost anything anyway.  Try as I might I could not find any main dinner dish that had licorice as a main ingredient.  I have resolved myself to the fact that I will have to fight for the meatballs and any leftovers that might be there at the end of the meal.  Maybe being Father’s Day the wife and kids might show some pity on me.

Jon

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