But this is GOOD moose piss!

Last night, our houseguest did indeed make his sauerkraut.

I couldn’t eat it.

I couldn’t even look at it.

The problem started when they took the bratwurst and put it in the beer and began boiling it. The smell began to permeate the house, and my stomach began to say, “Huh-uh. Not eating it.”

Then sauerkraut began to be made. The smell of the caraway seeds melded with the cooking beer and bratwurst and my stomach said, “This would be a good time to go upstairs and take a shower…”

My idea went like this: I’ll go take a shower, my husband will give the children the pork roast I made for them while he and Greg eat their food, and then I can sneak in, quietly grab a slice of pork and eat it over the sink and get out of there before the smell of the sauerkraut makes me puke up a lung.

But then almost an hour later here comes my husband to enthuse about the sauerkraut being ready. My stomach and I are barely on speaking terms as it is. If the stomach says it doesn’t want to eat something, I take it very, very seriously. And my stomach was definitely saying that if I even thought about eating sauerkraut, of all ill-begotten things, it was packing its bags and going home to Mother.

So I said, “You know, I just don’t like sauerkraut. At all. You guys have fun. I’ll have pork roast.”

There is This Thing that people will often do when you say you don’t like something. “I don’t like moose piss,” you’ll say. “Oh!” they immediately rejoin. “You just haven’t had good moose piss!”

Then they start trying to force-feed you ‘good’ moose piss. Try-it-try-it-try-it! But this is a rare vintage! It’s top shelf! Best of breed! Won ribbons! Peck-peck-peck-nag-nag-nag.

Civilized people will (eventually) drop the subject. Let’s say, for example, that upon having a bottle of moose piss waved under my nose, I yak up a kidney. A civilized person will discreetly drop the subject, put away the bottle, maybe get me a nice club soda and we will never speak of moose piss again.

…which brings me to the subject of Stinky Boys. Male humans, even those who do not habitually behave like Stinky Boys, carry within them a unique ability to behave in a manner that makes the women around them want to hit them very, very hard with the heaviest object in the room.

Stinky Boy behavior will impel them to do things like continue pushing the bottle under your nose saying, “Oh, c’mon, how can THAT WONDERFUL SMELL be making you hurl?!”, or to sit beside you with a mug full of moose piss slurping loudly, smacking their lips and announcing at ten minute intervals, “DAMN, but that sure is GOOD MOOSE PISS!!! I can’t believe you aren’t having any!!!”

Both my husband and our guest lapsed into Stinky Boy behavior last night. “So this is where your kids get it”, “what, are you reverting to childhood?”, “soooo, you’re not even going to try a little bit?”, “but this recipe comes straight from Germany!”, “c’mon, you know you’re going to have to try just a little bit!”

You know, when you wave the pan under my nose trying to entice me into liking it and I nearly hurl into it, this should really be a clue.

Yet still. For the entire two hours remaining in our evening, those Stinky Boys kept on and on and on about how marvelous it all was and how they couldn’t believe I wasn’t even going to try it. My husband, who is usually NOT a Stinky Boy to this level, sat on the sofa eating loudly, smacking his lips and carrying on until I was ready to smack him upside the head with the sauerkraut-laden frying pan.

And then…both Stinky Boys vanished and left me a kitchen that looked like the Bavarian army had marched through for a quick snack.

Un.Be.Freakin.Leave.Able.

But I’m plotting my revenge. Oh yes. Because Boys may be Stinky, but when irked I am downright evil. (This is the female counterpart to Stinky Boy, the Vindictive Witch.)

First of all – I’m line-drying all my husband’s underwear and socks today. BWA-HAHAHAHA. (And if I had any, I’d’ve starched ‘em, too.)

Secondly, I have a lovely bottle of moose piss Chinigue Andes Collection Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 I’ve been saving for just such an occasion!, a remarkably bitter complex vintage I’m sure they’ll just love…because obviously, they just haven’t had good cabernet…!