Foods that turn me into a two-year-old

This weekend was my Dad's birthday, so the family all got together for dinner and I volunteered to make Shepherd's Pie for everyone. Because it was St. Patrick's Day, and because my Dad always used to love Shepherd's Pie when we were little so I thought it might be some nice nostalgia. Plus I'd never cooked it before, so I thought it would be a fun challenge.

Well, it turned out absolutely delicious and was a big hit, except for a few complaints -- namely, that I'd left out a few key ingredients. Well, duh you idiots -- there's a reason I always hated eating Shepherd's Pie when we were kids and kind of hated my Dad for liking it so much and causing it to be a regular menu item in our home. And there's a reason I swiftly volunteered to cook this year instead of foisting it off on my brother as per usual. That reason was simple:

I WANTED SHEPHERD'S PIE WITHOUT ANY GODDAMNED PEAS IN IT.

Peas are awful and they taste gross and they ruin everything they touch. They are little green balls of poison foulness and even now, as a 27-year-old vegetable-loving adult, I refuse to eat them ever for any reason. (Please note that this hatred for actual peas does nothing to affect my extreme love for split pea soup, however. Split pea soup is the bomb)

Peas turn me into a two-year-old child, throwing tantrums and forfeiting any chance at dessert by stubbornly refusing to eat them. But they aren't the only food on my refuse-to-eat-that list. Here are a few other foods that I would consider eating dog food before I touched:

Mushrooms

I have tried pretty much every popular kind of mushroom, from button mushrooms to shittake mushrooms to those stringy ones they use in Asian food to fancy chicken-tasting ones my friend found outside (he's an actual legit mushroom expert so we weren't in danger of dying or tripping balls or anything). I have hated them all.

I dislike everything about mushrooms. I hate the taste of them -- that means when they're ground up or turned into soup, I still hate them. I hate the texture of them -- that means when they're hidden in something like spaghetti sauce and I get one in my mouth, my face screws up and I carefully spit the mushroom out. 

I passionately, violently hate mushrooms to the point where all decorum goes out the window. One time, I was at a work function and bit into a little doughy tart thing thinking it would be filled with meat or cheese. When I discovered that it was full of mushrooms, I grabbed a napkin and SPIT THE OFFENDING APPETIZER OUT rather than just choke it down. I reiterate -- this happened at a work function. I was wearing a business suit as I spit half-chewed mushroom fragments into a napkin.

When I was a kid, my mom used to always put mushrooms into spaghetti sauce because everyone else in the family liked them and she and Dad LOVED them. I would carefully, patiently sit there and sort through my sauce until I had removed every single mushroom fragment before I would start eating it. Sometimes, it would take me so long to do this that everyone else would be done eating before I even started. After a few instances of this, she finally learned that it was better to just pull out some sauce specifically for me before adding the mushrooms to the pot.

As an adult, I have carefully, patiently sat in the office cafeteria sorting through my vegetable soup until I have removed every single mushroom fragment before I start eating it. Sometimes, it takes me so long to do this that all my coworkers are done eating before I even start. 

I take a certain pride in this. I really don't like mushrooms, guys.

Olives

Olives are a little like mushrooms in that I hate every possible iteration of them. One time I ordered a taco salad bowl thing at a restaurant, specifically requesting no olives. When it arrived, it took me about half a bite to realize the waitress had not heeded my request.

I sent the salad back. I don't care if the cooks spit in the new one -- I'd rather eat the spit of a thousand underpaid Mexicans than eat one single olive.

Lima Beans

Why do these exist? Why do people serve them? Does anyone actually like them!?!?

When I was little, I thought I hated all beans. I didn't want chili unless it was of the no-beans variety. I avoided baked beans at barbecues like it was a vat of boiling witch's brew. And why? Because I knew I hated lima beans, and I figured all beans tasted just as awful.

They don't even LOOK appetizing. 

Mmm, yummy! Where can I get some! Do those come from inside a human body? Because they sure look like it!

At the work cafeteria in DC, the chef would sometimes serve a version of succotash whose main ingredients were lima beans and peas.

You can imagine how thrilled I was about that.

I also don't eat the skin on fried chicken, not because I'm watching my figure but because I honest-to-god don't like it. Skin is gross, y'all. IT'S SKIN FOR CHRISSAKES.

Then again, I may just be the Antichrist.

Random drawings: Clown and Devil laugh heartily as a volcano erupts and catches Bambi on fire

Happy birthday, Mom.


Also, it turns out the whole thing was actually painted by an owl. Whoa.

So I watched the newest Twilight movie ...

As I've said before, I'm not really into Twilight. And by that I mean that I have read not a word of any of the books, and up til this past weekend, I had watched a cumulative total of around 10 minutes of footage from all the movies. But then ... it happened.

You see, Jesse has seen all the Twilight movies. It started many years ago, long before he met me, when he was dating the kind of chick who not only wanted to watch Twilight, but DEMANDED that her boyfriend watch Twilight with her (frankly, I'm as shocked as you are that the relationship didn't last). But after he'd put in the time to sit through the first movie, he just sort of kept watching. He was in Iraq and bought a bootleg of the second one for $.25. When the third one came out, he rented it on Red Box while I was out of town because f**k it, he'd already seen the first two. And so when the final installment arrived at our local Red Box kiosk, Jesse wanted to watch it, just to say he'd seen the whole series. And this is how I was Shanghaied into watching an entire Twilight movie.

As you'd all expect, I hated it. I thought it was the worst movie I had ever seen in my life. I laughed out loud at things that weren't supposed to be funny -- at least six times. By the time it was over, I told Jesse I ought to punch him in the face for making me waste that much of my life. And told him to immediately take the movie back to the Red Box kiosk because the prospect of forgetting to return it and having to pay an additional dollar for it was enough to make me homicidal.

Here are the top few stupidest things in the movie (given that I didn't really understand what was happening since I had zero background in the story):

-- Kristen Stewart's front teeth should have had second billing in the cast list, because DAMNNNN GIRL. 

YOU ARE RICH. FIX YOUR F***ING TEETH.

-- The Taylor Lautner character is in love with a baby? So the parents are mad for like one second and then are like "nah, it's cool. He should totally babysit all the goddamned time. I trust him. He's a grown man who considers himself soul-married to our baby. I bet he will never do anything weird like try to have sex with her, especially given that she ages like 10 times faster than a regular person so she'll reach sexual maturity at around age 2." That is so unbelievably retarded I can't even wrap my mind around it.

Creepy adults and young girls don't really mix, as Jean Reno and Natalie Portman aptly demonstrated in Leon: The Professional

-- In the scene where Bella's father -- who apparently has no problem with his 17-year-old daughter running off to get married and then live in some sort of weird commune with some "adopted" kid like they're the f**king Manson family -- comes to visit, Edward brings out the baby to show to him. He is just holding the baby -- it isn't doing any weird vampire stuff or anything.

You guys.

You guys.


THE BABY IS CGI.

THE BABY IS FUCKING CGI. I AM NOT BLEEPING OUT THAT F-WORD BECAUSE YOU GUYS THE FUCKING BABY IS CGI.

Why could they not use a real baby!??!?! The baby is literally doing nothing except being held!!!!! They probably could have just borrowed a baby from somebody working on the movie. Shit, if I had a baby, I'd be like, "sure, Robert Pattinson can hold my baby for two seconds in this movie. What a neat story that could be for when the kid is grown up!"

But no. No no no. They computer-animated a baby.

Badly.

Really, really badly.

Looks just like a real baby! IF YOU HAVE GLAUCOMA.

This decision was so offensive to both Jesse and me that we would both burst out laughing at various points throughout the rest of the film because we were just reminiscing about how "I can't believe they did a CGI baby. That's so stupid it hurts."

Hey Edward, I think Bella cheated on you with the kid from Polar Express.

-- The entire plot is based around a misunderstanding that could have very easily been resolved with one bloody phone call. Or hell, don't use a phone -- you're vampires, use some mind-control shit. "Hello, Volturi? I know you're mad because you think we made an immortal child, which is frowned-upon, but actually she's half-vampire half-mortal and so we didn't do anything wrong."  "Oh really? Cool, what a relief. I mean I'll have to see the child for myself to make sure you're telling the truth, but that shouldn't be a problem. Should I come to you or do you want to come to me here?"  "We'll come to you -- it's no problem. See you shortly!"

Or, you could spend weeks and weeks building up armies to fight each other. That's ... that's cool too.

Nobody wanted to miss out on this.

-- The armies they build up to fight each other are hilariously tiny.

When, after an INTERMINABLY LONG AND DRAWN-OUT WAIT, the two armies are finally facing each other across a snowy field, the camera pans from angry face to angry face, focusing on those crazy vampire eyes and the growling of the wolf things, and it all looks very intense.

Acting!!!

And then the camera switches to a wide-angle long shot where you can clearly see that each side has like thirty people tops. I've seen bigger brawls break out in elementary school.

Wamp womp.

At this point in the movie, I started laughing so hard I had to leave the room. I was done. DONE.

And then there was a twist that made the whole thing even stupider, and we turned it off before it even ended and it was back in the Red Box machine five minutes later. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Seriously. A CGI baby.

A fucking CGI baby.

F**k you too, Twilight. Right in your ass.