What is it with people who always want to share food? You know, sometimes I don't have a problem with sharing food. I mean, it can really be quite festive at times to order five dishes at some excellent Chinese restaurant and then divvy up the meals between 4 or 5 people. This way, each person gets to feast on a rich pot pouri of varied flavors - a veritable culinary extravaganza. But, then there are also those times when you have your heart set on a very specific dish that your taste buds worship, and there's no way in the world you'll be willing to part with even the smallest morsel of it - even despite the possible lure of taking vicarious delight in a good friend or lover's enjoyment of your favorite dish's unique gastronomic appeal.
Words cannot easily express the significance of having an uncompromised and complete experience. Why is it so hard for some people to appreciate this? Instead of just understanding my need to enjoy every ounce of my favorite dish, such people think I'm being stingy. They even feel personally injured by my unwillingness to have tiny bits of my divine meal hacked away. If they had their way, they'd leave me with a feeble shadow of my former glorious delight. And then they'd expect me to enjoy it as much as I would enjoy the whole meal, almost as though they'd expect me to be happy to wear an expensive yet moth-eaten jacket, with the consolation that the one hundred tiny holes eaten by moths represent only 1% of the surface area of the jacket. Sorry, but I'm not going to enjoy wearing such a jacket 99% as much as if it weren't moth-eaten. The damn thing's ruined!
Christ, good food is a love affair, not so? A sensual fucking experience! I don't want to make love to a woman with four toes on one foot, half a nose, and no eyelid on one eye. I don't even care if she got that way because somebody else took a little nibble before I got to her. I want the whole package, damn it! (ok, maybe that's just a little bit cruel, and maybe there's actually a woman out there just like that - who has a beautiful soul - who is now offended by my statement)
It's particularly curious how these same people who may feel offended by being denied a "taste" of my special meal, would have no difficulty appreciating the importance of - say - a whole human being. "Oh, you don't mind if I take a teensy wheensy nibble on little Johnny's ear now, do you?" and "Gee, do you mind if I treat myself to one of those delicious clear blue eyes of his? I mean, there'll still be one left for him to see with, right?" NOT! How is it that a human being that has all but one of its parts would be viewed as being disfigured, and yet some dinner partner will have the flaming audacity to think that they could "just taste" one out of the three grilled portabella mushrooms in my delicious meal of grilled mushrooms smothered in an exquisite vegetarian red wine gravy and cradled on an orgasmically flavored bed of pine-nut enabled polenta - and it won't disfigure my meal! Bugger that, mate! My meal!
You've just got to draw the line somewhere. It's not about selfishness. It's not even about mushroom greed. It's about the complete experience. Hey, if you want to try my favorite meal, fucking order it for yourself! Don't nibble like a rat on my spiritual sustainance, whittling away the few remaining joys in my life that I take delight in, and which just barely keep me from killing myself.