Gary makes a salad for dinner sometimes. It’s mainly olives and peppers and artichoke hearts and feta. And, a little lettuce. The salad fills up our biggest metal bowl and takes up half a refrigerator shelf. We go through it like an archaeological dig. It takes us over a week. Of course by that time the lettuce is limp but the rest is fine.
Usually that’s acceptable to me, but last night Gary elected to go for some salad that was two weeks old.
“Throw that out!” I said. “That’s rotten.”
“NO IT’S FINE.” He gestured at his bowl of salad that had a dressing of pink slime mold. Suit yourself, I thought.
He sat down by me. Salad goes in mouth. “ACK.” Salad comes out of mouth. “THIS SALAD IS ROTTEN.”
He got up to throw out all the salad and returned with “A SNACK TO GET THIS TASTE OUT OF MY MOUTH.” Pretzels and Philadelphia cream cheese.
Pretzels go in mouth. “ACK.” Pretzels come out of mouth. “THIS ISN’T CREAM CHEESE.”
I can see how he thought the half-used stick of Crisco shortening was cream cheese: they are both wrapped in foil with blue lettering and measurement markings and stored in the catch-all refrigerator deli drawer. I felt for him.
Later he went in for a goodnight kiss. I am afraid I instinctively pulled away from the Pink Slime Mold Crisco mouth.