The squash incident.

Last Thursday night I texted Brian before I got off work:

Me: I’m hungry.

Brian: Ok what would you like

Me: Food.  🙂

I knew I could count on him.  When I got home, the second I stepped through the door, I exchanged greetings with Esther, glanced in the kitchen and assessed the situation.  Brian was boiling hot dogs and frying squash.

Before getting a chance to taste his creation, Brian preemptively warned me that he “forgot the egg part.”  You know, when you dip something in an egg wash before dipping it into the flour to fry it?

How bad could it be?, I thought as I scarfed down the hot dog.

Bad.  It could be very, VERY, very bad.

Under normal circumstances, I’m usually so grateful to have Brian pitch in around the kitchen that even if a dish tasted a little like it was lacking pizzazz, I’d certainly still thank him and clean my plate anyway.  But this?  This popped into my mouth and instantly popped back out.

It tasted like eating a spoonful of oily, warm flour.

I can’t eat this.  “Brian?  Come take a bite of this.”  The way that I saw it, if he knew how bad it tasted, then it wouldn’t hurt his feelings for me not to eat it.

He was still finishing up the last little bit of cooking (because he had given me my plate the second that there was enough to fill it), so he stepped away for a minute and took a bite.

Brian, “Oh!  …OOOOOOOOOOOOOH!  I can’t believe you made me eat that!  OH!”  He, too, spit out the squash.

“I just wanted you to know why I couldn’t eat it!” I defended as he finished making his own plate in the kitchen, sputtering and “OH!-ing” all the while.

Me, “I’ll give you $20 if you eat your squash.”

Brian, looking down at his plate, “That’s just $4.00 a piece!  I’m going to need a better deal than that.  Tell you what, if you get me an iPod, I’ll eat my squash AND your squash.”

Me, “OoOoOooh.”

Brian took a bite.

Me, “No!  OH!  Don’t do it!  EW!  Stop!  I’ll pay you $20.00 NOT to eat that squash!”

Brian, “Mine’s not that bad actually.  It’s better than yours.”  He took another bite.

Me, “OH!  EW!  Why are you doing that?!”

Brian, “I’m trying to earn my $20.00.”

Me, “Don’t do it.  I was just joking.  You know my money is your money.”

Brian, “I know.  Seriously though, it’s not that bad.”

Me, “Why is yours better than mine?”

Brian, “I used egg for mine.”

Hold up.  Wait just one second.

Me, “WHAT?!  You gave me the batch withOUT the egg!?”

Brian, “You were hungrier!  I figured you needed to eat right now!”

I threw my head back and burst into hysterical laughter.  Apparently when Brian warned me about forgetting the egg part, he was in such a hurry to get my dinner to me that even though he was still in the process of cooking, he just hoped for the best and gave me what was ready at the time.  Brian never let on that he actually finished frying the squash the right way.

Brian, laughing that I caught him secretly enjoying the better squash, “Here, try a piece.”

Me, “No.  I don’t want to.  But I wouldn’t mind a bowl of multigrain cheerios.”

Brian, “I’ll get it for you if you take a bite of my squash.”

Me, timidly cringing while I remembered the former squash, “Ok.”

Wow!  An egg wash makes a huge difference!

Me, “Here, I’ll just take the rest of that piece.”

Brian kept his word and moved toward the kitchen to get my cheerios.

I stopped him, “Actually, can I have one more?”

He brought back two and turned toward the kitchen once again.

Me, “Never mind.  Don’t worry about the cereal.”

Let’s just say that Brian never got to eat his squash.