A Good Meal Is Hard to Find

Harold had heard a marriage counselor once compare sex to eating meals. There are those times when the meal is microwaved pasta or a peanut butter sandwich, eaten alone and usually in kind of a hurry. You can live on it, but it tends to be unsatisfying. There are the meals of greasy hamburgers or spicy noodles that you know you shouldn’t eat. The food seems so tasty at the time, but afterwards you feel guilty, and a bit nauseous. There are the everyday meals that you share with someone else, meatloaf, mac n’ cheese, hamburger helper, chicken nuggets and the like. These are better than that PB&J, usually, and tend to make up the majority of your diet, especially when you are married.

And then there are those special meals. There are those meals that you look forward to in anticipation. You get dressed up, even though you are spending the evening in. You prepare the food carefully, precisely, making sure not to forget a single detail. You prepare the dinner table and set out your best dishes and silverware. There are candles and music. You both are smiling and happy as you sit down to eat. And when you take that first bite of your favorite food, lovingly crafted by the efforts of you and your spouse or date, it’s like a tiny section of heaven came down and surrounded you.

The sensations consume you and it’s all you can do to restrain yourself from just finishing the meal in a gluttonous frenzy. But you control yourself, tasting first one thing, and then another, enjoying each to their fullest. You concentrate on the flavors and sensations, not wanting to forget a single detail of this tremendous meal. And when the two of you are done, your spouse, your partner, your lover, gives you that familiar smile that lets you know that you have done it all right. You feel closer to them than you did just an hour before, through this shared experience.

As Harold struggled shakily into his clothes, he decided this meal had been like eating moldy apple cores from a garbage can, while mangy alley cats clawed his legs.