Sharing

A plate of delicious pasta is delivered to me at the table. I place my napkin on my lap, grab my fork, start to dig in, but stop in mid-dive because there is another fork already in my food, twirling spaghetti within its tines.

I stare until the intraocular fluid evaporates and my eyeballs fall out.

This is called sharing. And I seem to have a problem with it.

The Man sees my eyeballs rolling around on the table and tells me I don't know how to share. I tell him "sharing is when I've had a few bites of something good, say 'mmmm, would you like a bite?,' you say, 'i sure would,' then I proceed to select a piece of whatever food we're talking about and place it on your plate. To me, sharing is NOT looking down and watching my food being devoured by a detached third hand!"

We go on and on about this.

More often than not, The Man actually asks before he dips into my plate. But, if i say "okay" he thinks that entitles him to indiscriminately grab whenever the impulse strikes throughout the rest of the meal.

I spend a lot of time thinking about this. Do I have a problem? Or does The Man?

I have tried ordering the same thing he does, thinking he'll have no reason to covet my plate. Wrong! He still wants to taste my food because he thinks it looks better than his.

I am the Queen and The Man is my royal food taster.

The Man always offers me his food. He doesn't have a sharing problem. He does have an obsession with hot oil and dried chili peppers, which he pours or sprinkles liberally over everything he eats. For some reason I can never seem to remember this until AFTER I take a piece of his pizza, gasp for breath, grab my burning throat, fall on the floor and then hiccup for the next ten minutes grossing out the other patrons at the restaurant, all the while listening to The Man tell me, "oh you should have taken this piece. It doesn't have any hot peppers on it, here, right here, this piece here..."