Dear Robin-

Since you ask, I feed, as Todd said, whole raw kibble. Because it
contains carbon, it is organic. (So is python dookie, but I digress .I
did pay attention in chemistry class.)

*They*, however, feed various things that I wish they did not. Wasabi
peas is the one that really gets to me. I can eat one or two, say,
every five minutes, or as often as the excrutiating pain allows. Ping
just crunches them up like kibble. For some extremely peculiar reason
the dog likes them as well, although they make her nose run. Mine, too.
They also make my eyes water...they make my sinuses melt. It feels so
good when you stop eating wasabi peas.

Ever see wasabi paste? I went to dinner with a gentleman in Boston
years back...Marvin. A splendid fellow, but somewhat sheltered. Wasabi
paste looks like a little dab of mashed avocado extruded like
toothpaste on the side of your japanese sushi dinner plate. Well,
Marvin liked avocado, and had never been to a japanese restaurant
before. So he picked the entire green dab up in his chopstics (rather
clumsily) and popped it into his mouth. I tried to tell him NO!, but
he was too fast, and I didn't quite believe the suicidal gesture I
was seeing, right out in public like that. (Who knew Marvin was
self-destructive...he seemed so nice.)

Marvin was a very dark skinned caribbean man, but he quickly turned a
shade of purple, and began to quiver and shake the way the steam boiler
does in Stephen King's horror novel, "The Shining." He couldn't talk,
tears rolled down his face uncontrollably, the waitress came over and
tried to thump him on the back, which only agitated the poison already
in his system. He tried inserting his cold beer into the charred,
smoking hole in his face that he used to eat out of, with limited
sucess.

It was a very quiet evening, after that.

Next time you see wasabi peas, imagine Ping scarfing tham as fast as he
can, because he knows I'm going to take them away...and remember poor
Marvin.

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 5404]