Working way too late, I arrive home feeling incredibly sorry for the extended day the dogs endured by being cooped up inside. My lunch box was naked by 10 a.m. and I feel famished as the dogs excitedly greet me. Thanks to man's best friend, wet noses, jumpy legs and swinging tails makes a person feel special. Tickled that there are no messes to clean up, I feed them first and put them outside.
Tossing dorky work cloths into the hamper, it feels good jumping into shorts and a tattered, yet wonderfully comfortable, cotton t-shirt
Chores. There's always something. I care for the chickens, mail, trash, water plants and gather the dogs back inside as Caveman is hungry enough to bite into the butt-end of a skunk. I jerk the refrigerator open to scan my options. Hmmm....
A left over pork chop? How boring. My taste buds beg for some excitement so, what the heck, I grab a tube of wasabi and some soy sauce. Yea, that spicy combo sounds tantilizing to my deprived taste buds.
Like a child grasping a tube of toothpaste, I glob a line of yellow fire onto my plate that etches a groove into the porcelain. Forget the tiny dab, I want some heat and casually stir in some soy sauce. The mixture slowly flows around the chop and I flip it over and wipe it around to ensure both sides are equally drenched.
Hungry enough to simply stab the slab with a fork and eat from around the edges, I'm civilized enough to at least cut it in half. I take a huge bite.
Grinding the meat, I savor the bite. Suddenly, flames flash from my nose and singe my moustache, making the kitchen smell like the corrals during a spring branding. I can't breath and my tongue feels like it swelled to 8 times it's normal size. Tooth enamel melts like warm butter and I loose feeling in my lips. Chewing is now impossible as I do not feel my lower face and fear my jaw is paralyzed. Thanks to gravity, chewed up meat falls back to the plate as I run to the bathroom to look in the mirror. I anticipate seeing skin and flesh dripping off my face like runny candlewax, but, it's still me with only water streaming from my eyes. I reach up and gingerly touch my face, only fingertips affirm it's still there as there is no facial recognition of being touched. I cough a little from inhaled napalm fumes and things begin to calm.
"Hmmm...that wasn't so bad," I tell myself. I return to the table and am too thrifty (ie. cheap) to throw away food, so I dig in for round two.
Thanks to the destruction of taste buds and the healthy beginnings of nerve damage from round #1, I'm able to chew more. Dangerous fumes are inhaled that envoke hardy coughs originating from my toes. Eyes temporarily loose vision, my tongue is useless, my poor nose finishes melting off my face and the masticated meat drops back to the plate. Not because I opened my mouth, but because my jaw simply vaporized from 4,500 degree temperatures.
Stupid Caveman nears the point of the "Stop, Drop and Roll" procedure taught by firefighters, but the pain ebbs and I slowly regain consciousness. With my scorched mouth and numb face surrendering to the Wasabi gods, I take my plate and head to the trash can. Tipping the plate, juice accidentally drips onto the floor, making a deadly polka-dot pattern.
Immediately seizing the opportunity, the dogs strike. Maggie licks a few and violently shakes her head and disappears. Little Mojo, without Maggie's competition, moves in to clean up the rest. As her tongue hits dot #2, her entire being seizes, as if her tongue had been tasered by the juicy dot. Mojo becomes a statue, stalled in any movement. With her tongue still bolted to the floor, I imagine it was like she was licking a metal pole in the dead of winter. She recovers enough to look up at me as best she could with her eyes now being crossed. Her nose is twisted and corkscrewed off to one side while her ears lopsidedly dangle. As the juicy dot simmers in her mouth, suddenly, it's her turn.
"Don't give me that look... I didn't do that to you," I tell her as she settles while her glazed eyes stare into outer space. Like a 4-legged mannequin who's never been known for her smarts, she's motionless and I fear her last 2 brain cells were just roasted by molten Wasabi Fire. She staggers out of the kitchen and I rinse the plate knowing I won't need a plumber for 3-5 years due to Wasabi Lava sterilizing the pipe.
With toothbrush in hand, I brush what's left of my melted teeth and forget about supper...couldn't taste it anyhow. Feeling sorry for the hounds, I let them tell me where they want to sleep tonight.
Big mistake.
Classy Maggie sticks to her routine, snoring in her bed as Mojo opts to sleep with me. Throughout the night, I'm pinned down in bed sheets as the tiny dog somehow repeatedly straps me into a straight jacket. Like a mummy, I unwrap myself throughout the night and was happy to see first light.
My biggest lessons learned? Wasabi probably can kill and silly little dogs can morph into gigantic bed-hogs.
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