dirty, rotten sinner

shrimp rings. i have paul to thank for introducing that particular term into my vocabulary. then again, i can also thank him for knowing about cheese logs, what really is in head cheese and where to find the hottest hot sauce on the planet. but, really, this is all about the shrimp rings.
i made fun of paul for years about the fact that he ate shrimp rings. you see, this was 1997 and, although i now knew the term, i still had no real concept of what a shrimp ring looked like or consisted of. i think i was scarred by the head cheese revelation and i’d held this horrible mental image of shrimp woven into some freakish daisy chain of seafood appetizer abhorrance. i remember coming home from that particular visit to calgary and seeing an advertisment for shrimp rings in a weekly flyer. such was my giddy delight, i cut it out and mailed it to him. i thought it was the funniest thing. then he broke my heart by sleeping with his ex-girlfriend and admist all the crying and tragically awful poetry, i forgot about shrimp rings.
when i moved away from home and my mother, now left to her own devices, started doing the strange things which mothers do when their baby birds have finally flown the coop. i don’t remember exactly when it was, but i do remember the shock i felt when she told me she’d started buying shrimp rings. those fucking shrimp rings again!
“mom!” i wailed into the phone. “you can’t do that! shrimp rings are wrong. they go against nature, much like head cheese!”
she would’t understand the all-consuming terror i experienced with her revelation, so i didn’t attempt to share it. i let the subject drop from our conversation, but it was not out of my mind. “those fucking shrimp rings”, i thought. “they’re going to take over the world!”
one night, while playing cards with my friends as i’ve been known to do, meghan suggested a snack. it was one or three in the morning and the beer had made us peckish, so we all grunted assent. next thing i knew, there was a shrimp ring on the table in front of me. i’d never before seen one so close, or out of it’s protective wrapping. the bloody thing was actually pretty with all the uniform shrimp happily lined up around the sturdy plastic base. they seemed almost eager to dive into the dish of spicy sauce in their midst. my friends watched me as i tentatively reached for the evil shrimp ring of death. they didn’t know my past history with this culinary nemesis, they just thought it was my normal reaction to new and/or weird food.
my hand hovered above the dish for a moment as i tried not to think of the paul who ripped my heart from my chest or the mother i thought might be going insane. in a flash, i’d broken out the hypnotic daze, snatched a shrimp, dipped it in thick, red sauce and stuck it in my mouth and started chewing.
i can only imagine the expression on my face as i experienced the blasphemous shrimp ring for the first time. before i knew it, i had another shrimp in my mouth. i was actually enjoying it! dear god in heaven, i was a sinner! i was a dirty, rotten, vile, evil, shrimp ring-loving sinner!
that’s not all. if you can only imagine, it gets worse. so much worse.
i could almost live with my enjoying that first experience. i could even forgive myself for subsequent consumption of shrimp rings when available at, say, social gatherings. but now… now i’ve sunk to an even deeper, darker level. i’m now someone who buys shrimp rings for their own personal consumption! i’m so sorry. i never meant to let it get this far. it’s only been once, though! just the one time! i can stop, i know i can. just, let me finish the one that’s here. you can’t expect me to waste it can you? yeah, i can quit any time i want. don’t worry, i’ll quit just as soon as i’m finished this package…