On life and eating olives…
I’m eating a sandwich that has sliced black olives right now.
This probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to those of you who don’t know me pretty well, but to me, choosing to order them on my sandwich was really a giant step. You see, the sight and concept of olives, for the longest time, totally grossed me out. Green olives, which were the first ones I and most people were exposed to, have always looked gross to me. I think I tried tasting one once when I was very young, and didn’t like it at all. For me, I’d have been happy if green olives were only used as sight gags in Tom and Jerry cartoons, and didn’t physically exist in our reality.
Later on in life, my mother developed the disturbing culinary habit of eating whole black olives out of a can, almost always without utensils of any kind (mind you, I’m not a total angel on this last part; when I was a young kid, I would eat cold Vienna sausages out of the can with my hands, sometimes not even waiting until we were out of the supermarket to do so). They didn’t smell right, they didn’t look right, and the entire process made me really queasy.
Between my two frames of reference on the olive world, I was not batting a thousand by any means. It seemed likely that I’d never willingly eat olives and enjoy them. Once in a while, I’d be in a situation, like with a frozen “supreme” pizza or a salad, where they’d be part of the deal, and I’d either take them off or, if I absolutely had to, I’d eat a bite quick just to get it out of the way, but I didn’t enjoy it one bit.
Then, a couple of years ago, John was at my house, and brought over homemade salsa that he’d put together that had sliced black olives in it. Not wanting to be a rude host, I partook, and the results weren’t so bad. I was enjoying something that had olives in it, and it went OK for me. No allergic reactions, no food poisoning, and no instantaneous death. However, I didn’t rush back to market. Until today.
When I was ordering my sandwich, I saw them in with the condiments, and on a whim, I decided to live dangerously (Yeah, this from someone who used to drive without a license while drunk, stoned and tripping in New York City; where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?) and actually asked for black olives. The girl at the counter had no idea that she was changing my life, and just put them on the sandwich. I brought it home, took it out, and took a bite, and you know what? The olives were a nice touch! They’re pretty good.
To wrap this up, sometimes, life puts something in front of you that’s outside your comfort zone, and you have to decide what to do about it when it happens. While there are definitely situations where, upon quick examination, it’s a bad idea to take a leap of faith, other times, it’s worth doing and usually works out reasonably OK. Then, there are also times when that something I’m talking about may not be put in front of you like an obstacle, but is still an option that you are under no obligation to choose. One of those “out of the corner of your eye” deals. Just to shake things up a little here and there, it’s worthwhile to consider doing what you once would never have even thought of doing, or even to consider doing what may not have worked out so well in past attempts, so long as it doesn’t pose a clear, present and unreasonable amount of danger to yourself or others to do it.
I’m going to go finish my sandwich now, and then see what else I can do differently today.