Life lessons

My family gathered around the TV this evening. No, we don't always have the TV on. As a matter of fact, Allie was finishing her homework and Julia was playing with her Polly Pocket doll on the end table. But we were physically in close proximity to the TV and Greg and I were watching it. We were watching "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern" on the Travel Channel. This is a show where a chef guy does nothing but travel to locations far and wide and eat weird shit.

It's rather fascinating to see someone who regularly eats around cartilage and tendons, who likes organ meats (especially hearts) and enjoys fish parts that most people throw away, not to mention that he likes bugs. He shows the "food" (and I use that term lightly) to the camera, then stuffs it into his maw, crunching (usually the stuff is crunchy, unless it's really really chewy) and then comments on how it tastes. Unimaginably gross, I would guess. Tonight, he actually commented on how delicious some cow intestines were, saying that he's eaten cow intestines before that weren't well washed and were from the lower intestine and not coincidentally, that those tasted, as he said, like "you know what." He also ate a tarantula, pulling off the legs one by one and then saying that the mushy abdomen tasted like the inside of a lobster. We all cringed when he ate a whole Madagascar hissing cockroach, flavored with teriyaki. Those suckers are huge. He liked the cockroach too.

Eventually, there was a commercial and I hit the mute while we all silently gave thanks that we had finished dinner more than an hour before. That's when Greg noticed that Julia's Polly Pocket was having a makeout session with a Spiderman figure. Polly and Spiderman were really getting in to the kissing thing, so much so that I'm sure if there had been more people around, someone trying to be clever would have suggested that they get a room.

I asked Julia if Spiderman was Polly's boyfriend and if they were going to get married. Greg asked if they were going to have a baby and I promptly inserted that they had to get married before they could have a baby. It's never too late to start indoctrinating the children, you know. And it's never too early to start convincing them that there are better ways to make money than going on a show like "Fear Factor." Even if I do like to watch it.