Valentine’s Day Buffet

I like to take a girl out for a huge meal on Valentine’s Day. Somewhere with gigantic portions. Somewhere that either has a buffet or portions so large that another serving would cause your stomach lining to burst. Now, you probably think I’m crazy. I am. But, this Valentine’s Day eating ritual is sacred to me. Why? Because you don’t know what kind of girl you got until you eat a plateful of greasy food in front of her and see how she reacts.

Sure, she might back away slowly in disgust. But, she may smile and rub your belly and tell you, “Oh, you’ve gone and done it again, ya big lug.” That’s the kind of gal I want. A girl who will laugh as I stuff my face. A girl who will pass the biscuits. Pass the gravy. Pass the pizza with extra pepperoni and sausage. Pass the second burrito (when we both agree one of more than enough).

I want a girl to embrace my repulsive side. If she does, then I’ll know she’s the one … to cook for me and serve me steaming hot plates of turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes with lots of cheese and garlic. That she’ll smile as she observes me asleep on the couch after a long night of feasting—pants off, mouth agape, drooling, burping, sweating, farting.

Yes, then I’ll know she’s special. If she’ll drape a blanket over my glistening, enlarged belly. If she’ll lovingly caress my clammy face. If she’ll scrap the cornbread crumbs and pork meat from my swollen lips.

Why wait years into the relationship? I want to get it over with now. Why hide my inner beast? My inner buffet-hound? My inner burrito-lover? My inner drive-thirty-minutes-for a-two-pound-hamburger kind of personality? 

And I won’t stop at just food. Everything is on the table now. Drugs. Beer. Whisky. It’s all over the table. It’s there if she wants it. If she declines and leaves, that’s fine. Because then it’s just more for me.

“He’s a sick man.” Maybe I am. Maybe I’m gross and weird and demented. Maybe I don’t shower enough and maybe I drink too much bourbon, to the point where chivalry and gentlemanly wooing have been replaced by the primal thoughts of a man. The hedonistic qualities that lie beneath any man. The same qualities that, if left dormant, will attack without warning. A year, five years, ten years down the line. It could be any time. Any place. When he snaps. When I snap. So, why let it fester? Why let it gurgle and steam in the depths of my being?