A Hypothetical You and the Dreaded Asparagus: A Very Unfortunate Affair

So you've got a dinner date slash company wide meeting with the president of your corporation, your fellow associates and everyone's respective spouse. If this scenario does not and would not ever apply to you, interchange president, corporation and associates with intimidating and respectable authority figures more appropriate to your line of work or lifestyle.

Either way, you are in the midst of an important and exciting outing of some sort at a restaurant known especially for its extraordinary fresh produce. It is a rare opportunity to dine here and your boss or your book publisher- or I don't know maybe the radio station sponsor who hosted the contest from which you won this free meal voucher- once again, insert your particular situation; bottom line, you have a world of delicious food at your fingertips to eat and it wont cost you a cent.

Naturally, as most people would, you agree with the rest of the table members to take advantage of the restaurant's most famed appetizer which includes an arrangement of the freshest organic vegetables in season, with special homemade dipping sauces. What a thrill for you. You can't even bear the anticipation not to mention your stomach has been grumbling in angst-y emptiness for the past three hours, which everyone at the table is involuntarily aware of since the internal thunder happens to be embarrassingly loud. There is no doubt in anyone's mind you are dying to eat.

A fact which you ordinarily would not mind the entire table and restaurant knowing but in this case you should have kept your mouth shut, as you realize later in retrospect.

Why? Because when the waiter finally arrives at your table, plates in hand for each table member and an enormous sized appetizer platter of the steaming signature dish it is with horror and almost paralyzing nervousness that it dawns on you what is the primary ingredient of this apparent delectable delight you are going to be so expected to eat:

Asparagus.

Great, you think. Asparagus, of all the vegetables out there this restaurant we choose has to make that one the specialty item. A sense of panic sweeps over you. You feel your face flush your stomach cramp and your chest tighten.

You know all too well from past experience what eating asparagus will mean. Yet you have to admit it is rather delicious, you only are going to have this fine dining opportunity once and well, It is more than obvious your body wants some food as soon as is humanly possible.

You are confronted with a tricky decision. You can either pass on the asparagus filled appetizer and obsess as you usually do about the possible impressions such a refusal may have made on your business associates and the biggest boss of all the company big bosses.

For instance they may look down on you as one of those picky, or worse, unrefined eaters or they might find it rude that you wouldn't even try a single bite of it when part of the reason they splurged on the appetizer to begin with was because you in particular were having hunger pains. You also run the risk of insulting the bigger boss whose idea it was to enjoy this business meeting at such a fine establishment as a gesture of gratitude toward you and the other hard working associates.

And of course you will never know the truth but there's no doubt you'll worry about it for weeks to come at the very least, as the nature of your conscience never fails to do, which will surely come out in all of your future interactions with these people involved even if only subconsciously. Even subconscious tension can create a lasting effect on interpersonal communications.

Declining the food, though, is definitely a viable option.

On the other hand you could probably more easily just be polite and eat. Not to mention you will likely enjoy the experience as well seeing as how you secretly love asparagus. This option would surely save you a lot of nerves and stress at least for a little bit of time. From a superficial perspective just swallowing your pride and eating the damn delight would most certainly be the ideal choice.

But as you've come to learn with these deceivingly flowery green vegetables acting on a whim isn't always rewarding. Sometimes one must give proper consideration to the future.

Before you can distract your thoughts it all comes back to you in a swirling daunting dizzying flash. That summer. Oh dear lord that horrible summer in England. The worst dating experience of your entire life career. It seems your conscience won't even let you live it down. It has already been four years since the fifth date debacle but it will be ingrained in your mind- not to mention your nightmares- for surely the next two lifetimes at least.

You struggle to maintain a presentation of appropriate professional composure and try to focus all of your conscious attention on the present moment; your business associates and higher up's facial expressions as they chatter on about this or that; you observe the atmospheric energy of this beautiful classy restaurant, acknowledging the aroma of fine gourmet fare wafting to your table just outside of the kitchen entrance. You try with all the will power you have left in you from the long day of work to concentrate on these tangible observations happening outside of your head but the grand effort you're exerting just doesn't seem to be making a difference. You just can't shake from your mind and inner vision the dreadful intrusions of asparagus monopolizing memoirs.

It's making you sick to your stomach thinking of that beautiful promising evening in England where the future wife of your dreams fell promptly out of love with you over a single hour of dinner. It was your fifth date with the woman and things were getting pretty intense. You had made the scary decision to invite her back to your hometown to meet and visit with your folks, to be the second girl only you had ever cared enough to have them meet. It was a request that indicated a higher level of commitment in the relationship and you were nervous but you dressed up and took her out to a nice little Thai restaurant for dinner. Everything was going great, the food was extraordinary, she held your hand across the table and looked at you deeply with those eyes- oh those eyes... It was those eyes you couldn't shake from your memory still to this day. Those unusual but strikingly stunning green eyes and the way they changed that night when you asked her if she wanted to order dessert.

You were sure after you finished your asparagus and mushroom chicken dish that she'd be interested in sticking around for more. If she had shown any bit of disinterest at that point you never would have waited so long to pop the question about meeting the parents. But you had made the decision halfway through dinner that you'd ask her over a lovely dessert. You realized it might not be a giant deal to her anyway but to you, it was huge.

So huge, in fact, that the fear of wetting your pants in nervousness was so great that as soon as your dinner plates were clear you booked it to the single co-ed restroom to pee. And that's pretty much the time it all ended. You came out, she had to go powder her nose or whatever, so she goes in right after you. You are just sitting there waiting at the table all psyched up to throw out the invite, you admire her as she walks back to the table and sits down in that graceful way that was so natural to her and everything's great you are excited, nervous but heart throbbing excited and bam-she declines the dessert.

Out of nowhere and it wasn't just an "I'm tired decline". It was a "No dessert no further calls and no further dates after this one" decline. And this wasn't you being paranoid because sure enough her actions backed it up. So what happened? How could you forget? You did a little research, promptly placed full 100% fault on the asparagus in your chicken meal and made solemn vow to yourself to never touch that veggie again.

*Follow up question is:

Why would you be mad at the asparagus? And do you have a right to be? Why would eating asparagus disgust a date so much?

*For answers to these questions see my next article titled "What's up with that Asparagus?" As soon as it is published I will place the link to it in the comments below. Thanks for reading.