She's trying to kill me ... with love

 

We still talk about this at family parties. From February 24, 2005. 

My wife and I celebrated Valentine's Day and our anniversary this month, and I remembered both. I haven't missed her birthday or a special occasion for years. I pull my own weight around the house — I sweep, mop, dust and take out the trash. 

Nevertheless, she's trying to kill me. 

Superman has his Kryptonite, Achilles his heel, and King Kong his Fay Wray. My weakness is food, and she exploits it to her advantage. 

In the past, she's tried to take me out with chicken potpie and brownies. The potpie is still memorable years later: a mass of viscous goo that looked like something a young Steve McQueen would jab at with a pitchfork in The Blob. Only a cast-iron stomach and a call to Pizza Hut saved me. 

The brownies were just as memorable. They weighed 17 pounds if they weighed an ounce, a black lake of chocolate frozen solid in a baking dish. 

I cracked them over my head and they snapped in half without spilling a crumb. I gnawed through one or two chunks with the help of a gallon of milk. Presumably, the rest is at the bottom of a landfill where its radioactive half-life will keep farmers' fields barren until 2067. 

I'm still alive. 

Last week, she became desperate. I know this because she's repeating tricks. It was her second attempt at killing me with sloppy joe sandwiches. 

The first time was a family party several years ago, when she enlisted the help of her sister. Sis whipped up a dish that resembled sloppy joe in name only. They were sickly brown with a layer of scum on top that would have been right at home on Lake Erie in the 1970s. 

Nevertheless, I ate three helpings. I learned her sister had tossed some bizarre combination of taco seasoning, ketchup and herbs into the mix. For the next two days, I did nothing but roll on the bed, hold my stomach and race for the bathroom. 

This week, my wife fixed her own sloppy joe recipe and served me two sandwiches. I noticed a strange odor, barely masked by the scent of Manwich, but since I was hungry and sloppy joe is one on my favorites, I wolfed them down and went for a third. 

My wife took a bite of her sandwich and immediately began scraping the meat off the bun. "It tastes funny," she said. 

Instantly, it clicked. "Yes, it tastes like ... soap." 

"Oh." Her eyes grew large and she told me that as she was draining the grease from the meat, she was also cleaning another pan, and it was just possible she accidentally squirted Dawn dish soap into the meat. 

They weren't sloppy joes, they were soapy joes, and I knew how I would be spending the next 48 hours. 

To be fair, my wife is only trying to kill me with love. I didn't marry her for her culinary skills, just as she certainly didn't marry me for my mechanical know-how. 

It's love that keeps her from commenting when my attempts to drive a nail straight go awry, and love that keeps me dutifully — and mostly silently — eating her cooking, including the periodic pus-filled potpie, blackened brownie or soapy joe. 

Of course, there's a case to be made for gluttony, too. 

Or, as a friend of my daughter commented when she heard that I'd eaten three sandwiches laced with dish soap: "Eating one is love, eating three is just stupid."