One from the east coast.

Kids, today is another lucky day here in Debland. First, I had the privilege of Jessica Bern(www.bernthis.com) being a guest poster all the way from California.

Today, we will hear from a way cool east coast chick. Everyone, please welcome Marinka, from NYC (http://nycmomandmore.blogspot.com/) She is friends with Jessica. Like Jessica, she is filled with truckloads of humorous observations, and you get to read them. I'll never think about pepper mills again without remembering Marinka.

Note to my other bloggy buddies: One of these days, you will be asked to guest post for me. Beware!!

And now, heeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssss Marinka!!

Pepper Mill

I used to date a man who was way too good looking for me. Like people would see us together and I could read their minds. "She must be loaded," some would think. "She's got to be a cousin or something," others would be convinced. "You can't tell from the looks of her," yet another contingent would muse, "but I bet that she has a trick pelvis or something."

The price that I paid for being in an unnatural relationship is that this Adonis mortified me in restaurants. Our food would arrive, and the waiter would drag the table leg of a pepper mill over , asking "some pepper?" Now, I have no idea why they don't just put a pepper shaker on the table and spare everyone this song and dance and if I ever meet the person who started this trend, we will have words, believe you me, but I'm one of those people who accepts things as they are and doesn't push for change. You won't find me on the front lines of any revolution, unless the front lines are being served chocolate mousse, in which case, just try and keep me away from whatever the hell cause it is that we're fighting for.

But anyway, back to Adonis. Somewhere he read (while moving his lips, no doubt) that people who salt their food automatically before tasting it are not too bright so he decided to expand it to pepper, to demonstrate hyper intelligence. So the waiter would come along and ask "some pepper?" and Adonjs would say, "I don't know yet. I have to taste it first." And then the waiter and I would be in a state of suspended animation while he tasted the food. As with all things dating, at first I found this charming, then old, then irritating and finally it took all my earthly restraint not to choke him at the table while beating him over the head with the pepper mill. I'm pretty confident that the waiter was at the last phase immediately.

"Could you maybe just pass on the pepper or something?" I asked him. "Making the waiter stand there while you chew is super annoying."
"If I don't taste the food, how am I supposed to know if it needs pepper or not?" he asked me. It was a logical argument that I couldn't win, especially when he analogized to the sommelier bringing a bottle of wine and waiting while the drunk examines its legs in a glass, takes a sip and says something like "this will be fine, thank you." (Side note: I find that annoying also. Another side note: I'm pretty sure that instead of calling him the sommelier, he called him the wine guy.)

Finally we broke up. No, it wasn't because of the pepper, but I'm telling you that it didn't help. Neither did the fact that I earned more money than he did. I may be homely, but I'm not stupid.