Dry Heave

A major American theme park has decided to repeat a marketing gimmick that paid off big time last year. A Halloween promotion offers free tickets and cuts to the front of the line for anyone willing to eat a live Madagascar Hissing Cockroach. This is not a new phenomenon. There is big money in getting people to eat disgusting things. The Entertainment Industrial Complex struck that gold mine generations ago. Sociologists have said all they can say about what drives people to engage in this type of behavior. All of the angles, profit, attention, self-loathing, and sexual gratification have been discussed ad nauseam. So it is settled, some people eat disgusting shit, I don’t know why, they just do.

I think there are more important issues to be addressed here. I believe there are vast numbers of individuals among us who secretly eat bugs. As children, they sit cross-legged in the dirt, feigning interest in the social order of ants. As adults, they diligently label and mount their scrumptious specimens for future “examination.” They wait impatiently for the next contest or special offer that provides license to publicly indulge in their secret desire. As bug is pressed against tongue, some conceal their ecstasy by contorting their faces in well-rehearsed expressions of horror. Others hide behind exaggerated, and therefore unbelievable, displays of euphoria.

Your fingers twitch in anticipation of the obvious question. Has my New-World-Centric bias blinded me to the obvious? Absolutely not, I am aware that bugs, worms, grubs, etc., are considered delicacies in places far removed from my sterilized environment. I also know that my own list of personal favorites includes items that would wretch the most fervent eater of bugs in those far way lands. The fact remains, those born into non-bug-eating cultures would sooner gulp a gallon of warm lard before they would grind the crunchy shell of a beetle between their teeth. So, it is settled. Learned behavior or not, eating bugs is disgusting.

I said all of that so I could ask this question. What about those of us who share our lives with people who put disgusting things into their mouths? (Silver platter alert!) Smokers married to non-smokers come to mind, but they likely knew what they were getting into in the first place. A better example is a recent incident where I walked into the kitchen and caught Jilly furiously stuffing a chocolate filled doughnut into her mouth. Only moments before, this pastry product had taken up residence in the deepest recesses of the kitchen garbage can. It had, by mutual consent, been deposited there along with several other ancient, and very aromatic, containers of decayed food. Jilly stood wide-eyed and motionless, with chocolate sludge on her lips and doughnut detritus littering the floor at her feet. Her eyes shifted from surprise to embarrassment and then quickly assumed the familiar squint of defiance. The awkward pause ended with an enthusiastic resumption of mastication. I stood in utter disbelief, arm outstretched, the accusatory finger held aloft in lieu of the scream that had become lodged somewhere between my lungs and my paralyzed tongue. In a scene reminiscent of a Wild Kingdom episode in which an Anaconda unhinges its jaws and swallows whole the struggling boar, the doughnut was consumed. There followed a flurry of rationalizations as well as “irrefutable evidence” of physical separation between the pastry and the decomposing waste. Her feeble attempts at damage control were all in vain, for in the time that it took for my eyes to behold and my mind to accept, I became the husband of a dumpster diver.

Ok, so I’m being overly dramatic. Who hasn’t eaten from a garbage can? Is it any worse than stumbling upon your husband, fingers plunged deep between the cheeks in an attempt to exorcise that demon itch? Is it more detrimental to happiness than the reflection in the bathroom mirror of your spouse, finger buried past the second knuckle, burrowing into the cerebral cortex via the nostril? Yes, it’s a lot worse than that. Bug eating is a deal killer. If you doubt this, envision the kitchen scenario with minor revisions. You enter the kitchen unannounced. You make eye contact with your beloved at the very moment she thrusts a fistful of cockroaches passed her delicate lips into that beautiful mouth that you have loved with every inch of your being. She freezes, wide eyed, embarrassed and then defiant. The bugs are consumed and then she beckons, “come give me a kiss baby.” So much for the victimless crime.