Ham

Each week, one of my favorite Margarita Monday rituals is my phone call to Andrew. Unfortunately, today's call began with the news that Andrew would be unable to attend the night's festivities. However, Andrew made it up to me by having a twenty minute conversation about meat. Seamlessly, we flowed between beef, chicken, and turkey. Ham, though, was the championed subject. Forever, we spoke of the delicacy; I recounted the tremendous amount of ham I enjoyed for Christmas dinner. It was the first holiday dinner in quite some time that ham was served. Though my family used to eat it a lot for special occasions, when my grandparent got gout, ey could no longer eat ham, thus we could no longer eat ham. Now that my grandparent is dead, however, guess who got invited back to the table.

Andrew asked how my grandparent overcame gout. I'm not sure -- dying? Evidently, Andrew's grandparent had it, too. While Andrew's grandparent didn't use it as an excuse not to eat ham, ey did cite it as a reason not to wear a seat belt in the car because it "hurt" eir gout. A long time later, Andrew caught the grandparent wearing a seat belt and exclaimed, "Your gout is gone!" That's when the grandparent let Andrew in on a little secret: ey was only pretending the seat belt aggravated eir gout, because ey didn't like wearing it.

I contemplated using gout for an excuse myself. I think I deserve an extended vacation at some point during the school year and gout just might be the condition that does me in. The problem is that I already have a coworker who is legitimately (or so I thought) suffering from gout.

Before I took this train of thought too far, however, Andrew had an epiphany. "I just realized that gout killed my grand[parent]!" There was both excitement and concern in Andrew's voice. I didn't follow, so Andrew explained that after surviving cancer and various other serious afflictions, eir grandparent died in a car accident... after flying from the seat... from not wearing a seat belt... the fake consequence of gout. Hence, gout indirectly was responsible for the fatality. It's almost funny how life works out sometimes, but I had to control my chuckling, as it was not right to laugh at the death of a good friend's grandparent. Plus, it was fairly intense to be present for someone developing a greater understanding of a loved one's death.

Beware of gout, y'all. And eat a lot of ham before it's too late.