Usually, the universe seems to love me. Despite my being lazy, unambitious, inattentive to small details and foggy on the big picture, most things in my life have worked out for the best.
I have no idea why. Maybe I was a really nice guy in a former life and this is Karma. Maybe it's blind chance. The only thing I know for sure is, I haven't earned any good fortune in this life.
Good fortune keeps coming my way regardless. Oh, I'm not rich or successful, not famous, not wildly popular with the ladies, not notably athletic. All I am is happy.
I have a sweet lady friend, I have a roof over my head. I have (as anyone with eyes can plainly see) more than enough to eat. I have a job I love, a weekend hobby I love, a couple bucks in the bank ... life is pretty good. Maybe not Donald Trump good, but my haircut is WAY better than his, so I've got that going for me, too.
But I started this column with the word "usually" for a reason.
This past Sunday evening, the universe turned on me. I'd spent the day getting ready for what was to be the meal of my life. OK, maybe not of my life, but it was going to be pretty darn good.
I broke the bank and bought a couple very good, very expensive steaks. I could have used the money for a car payment, but didn't. These babies were, to any rational carnivore, works of art. Michelangelo couldn't have marbled these steaks more perfectly with a magical, golden brush. Sitting there behind the butcher's glass, they hummed and glowed with gastronomical wonderfulness.
I brought them home and lowered them lovingly into Lori's all-but-enchanted secret marinade, where they waited patiently for several hours. And finally, onto the grill, ambrosial with the sultry smoke of applewood.
Lori put together a Caesar salad and we sat down to dinner.
A tear gathered in the corner of my eye as I cut a thin strip from this Socratic ideal of meat. I chewed slowly, lovingly, cherishing each nuanced flavor contained within that first exquisite bite. Nirvana, heaven ... I felt thankful to live in an age where such foods exist.
And then the thing got stuck halfway down my gullet. Not just a little stuck, but a lot.
This is the result of my having a constricted esophagus, a condition that has plagued me, on very rare occasions, for the past 30 years. What it amounts to is this: the tube that carries food from my mouth to my belly is too narrow and when something gets stuck in there, that's it. Game over.
As Lori drove me to the emergency room, I couldn't help thinking of that majestic steak, cooling in the refrigerator. Still edible once reheated, sure, but never again to be the carnivore's dream it once was.
Maybe the universe is a vegetarian.
Tune in to Mike Taylor's Reality Check Radio Show every weekday at 5:30 p.m. on WGLM 106.3.
mtaylor@staffordgroup.com
(616) 548-8273
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