DON'T YOU JUST HATE PRACTICAL JOKES?

Image: IMGUR

We all have our food pet peeves and the thought or sight of people eating them gets us in our cringe modes.

I am no different.

I hate the thought of dog as meat. I don’t understand why people would eat an animal that is so loyal and almost human in its empathy. I had a dog growing up and I watched that dog get in the line of fire when armed robbers came to the house. I have also seen the very inhumane way dogs are killed before they are cooked. In one instance, the wails of a dog as it was clobbered to death stayed with me for a very long time. While I am not your complete dog person – they are so needy and clingy and always too playful – I would say I like dogs. So the thought of someone eating an animal I like is repulsive to me.

That being said, I don’t try to force anyone to stop eating dog meat. I may express my dismay (and disgust) at the sight but I maintain that everyone have a right to eat whatever they want.

It was then a surprise to me when a little boy tricked me into biting a piece of dog meat.

Let me explain how it happened.

I lived with this family that ate dog meat on a regular. The mother was like me and insisted that the family had a separate pot for their ‘delicacy’. For years, they kept the peace by ensuring the mother (and anyone else who didn’t like dog meat) didn’t get to see, talk more of eat it.

Enter Ramat as a visitor to their home. I told them my view on their meat. It was all good and dandy until the last born decided to play a practical joke on me. I was seated in the living room when he walked up to me with a steaming bowl of meat pieces. Before I could ask what was going on, he said his mother said I should take a piece. Even though my guard was down at hearing it came from his mother, I nonetheless asked if it was dog meat.

‘Would mum have sent it if it was dog meat?’

I was okay with the response. The first inclination that something was wrong was the fact that he stood there and watched me. I shrugged my wariness off, took a piece and bit into it. I chewed slowly because I saw that the boy was beginning to break out in laughter. Unafraid, he started to boldly laugh and shout about how I had finally eaten dog meat.

I was so freaking livid! I ran to the bathroom to force myself to throw up. I hung over the toilet seat and wretched almost rhythmically to his laughter. When I was vomiting, he laughed. After that, my frantic efforts at brushing my mouth had him in even bigger states of laughter. Then I turned to him and then he knew he had crossed the line.

As I watched him and replayed his laughter in my head, I wanted to beat the breaks out of him in a way that I never imagined possible. I was the hulk at that point and my rage was even bigger. He saw my expression, my clenched fist and my labored breath and said, ‘Haba Ramat. Don’t be angry. It was just a joke.’

At that instant, I walked out of the bedroom and out of the house. I was so angry I cried in the streets. I wished I had been violent but they were kids. When I returned to the house, I became Elsa before the thaw.

Anyway, I don’t know why the incident came to my mind but it is important not to force a person to eat something they hate. It is not only children who do this nonsense in the name of a joke. I can almost understand children doing it but I definitely do not understand why a full grown adult would do something so nasty and mean in the name of a joke?!

What if I was allergic and that bite meant a reaction that could lead to my death? If I was religious, that would have meant an uncleanness I would have had to deal with. But better than that, people hate what they hate! It is disrespectful to them to trick them into having something that disgusts them just because you want a couple of laughs.

So the big question is this…can we stop this nonsense already?! Playing that practical joke, especially when it comes to what people eat and don’t eat, may get you into bigger problems someday. So do yourself a favor and stop it already. Thank you.

What practical food joke has been played on you? How did you handle the scenario?