Yes, that's the only way I could describe it. This morning my wife spoke up about something she was reading online; normally this has the potential to raise my blood pressure or at least introduce some level of stress, but today...it was different. I swear that I felt the magnetic poles of the Earth shift slightly; for sure there was a brief blinding shimmer as though we were momentarily in phase with some weird alternate dimension when she spoke.
I waited with bated breath for clarification...surely I had not heard her correctly? Did she actually say "Huh! Looks like you were right!" as I believed I had heard? I've always suspected that she suffered from some kind of physiological condition that made that combination of syllables impossible for her to verbalize. I sat frozen in my seat, my coffee halfway to my lips, too frightened to move and possibly break the spell.
But she looked up from her laptop and repeated it! "Did you hear me? I said you might be right about the honey".
It was true! I had heard it! And still I sat transfixed with wonder. What the hell was going on?
She then began to chatter about an article she had found regarding counterfeit honey, made by cutting real honey with other syrups and sweeteners, and also now possible to produce entirely in a lab without any bees required. It's apparently just like real honey, except for the fact that it tastes, smells and looks different, behaves differently when added to foods, has limited shelf life and costs just as much. Otherwise, identical to the real thing.
When I was a kid, I helped my grandfather tend to his hobby apiary, consisting of only a few hives, which produced far more honey than our family could utilize...but we sure tried. Honey as a sweetener in tea and coffee...honey drizzled on cinnamon buns instead of icing and on pancakes instead of syrup...honey mixed into warm water as a soothing drink for sore throats...honey on toast or bagels, honey in oatmeal or Cream of Wheat cereal, honey with peanut butter in sandwiches...a dash of honey to sweeten baked beans instead of molasses...honey, honey, honey...I loved the stuff and still do. I didn't chew gum as a kid; we carved off slabs of honeycomb and popped a chunk into our mouths, to be chewed like gum to extract all that golden deliciousness before spitting out a detestable glob of wax. Naturally, I now insist that we purchase nothing other than pure, natural, 100% real raw honey, unpasteurized, unadulterated, unimproved, un-messed-around-with.
And my wife has screwed up her face every time I bring some home. She finds the idea of honey, produced by bugs who collect nectar and then vomit it up as honey, repulsive. She's one of those special folks who taste something, find it delicious...and then change their minds when they learn something about it that they don't like.
I have often tasted some of the bland pap that she buys at the supermarket and commented that it was very poor quality honey...but now that the internet, i.e. The Holy Oracle of our times, has spoken and alerted us to the presence of counterfeit honey, she has finally decided to inform me that perhaps...maybe...possibly...conceivably...I might be right! I was so taken aback that I even extrapolated from that and suggested that she was, by extension...wrong...
Apparently, there is a rare alignment of the planets this month; that must be the explanation...yeah, that's it. I knew it had to be something cosmic...
I waited with bated breath for clarification...surely I had not heard her correctly? Did she actually say "Huh! Looks like you were right!" as I believed I had heard? I've always suspected that she suffered from some kind of physiological condition that made that combination of syllables impossible for her to verbalize. I sat frozen in my seat, my coffee halfway to my lips, too frightened to move and possibly break the spell.
But she looked up from her laptop and repeated it! "Did you hear me? I said you might be right about the honey".
It was true! I had heard it! And still I sat transfixed with wonder. What the hell was going on?
She then began to chatter about an article she had found regarding counterfeit honey, made by cutting real honey with other syrups and sweeteners, and also now possible to produce entirely in a lab without any bees required. It's apparently just like real honey, except for the fact that it tastes, smells and looks different, behaves differently when added to foods, has limited shelf life and costs just as much. Otherwise, identical to the real thing.
When I was a kid, I helped my grandfather tend to his hobby apiary, consisting of only a few hives, which produced far more honey than our family could utilize...but we sure tried. Honey as a sweetener in tea and coffee...honey drizzled on cinnamon buns instead of icing and on pancakes instead of syrup...honey mixed into warm water as a soothing drink for sore throats...honey on toast or bagels, honey in oatmeal or Cream of Wheat cereal, honey with peanut butter in sandwiches...a dash of honey to sweeten baked beans instead of molasses...honey, honey, honey...I loved the stuff and still do. I didn't chew gum as a kid; we carved off slabs of honeycomb and popped a chunk into our mouths, to be chewed like gum to extract all that golden deliciousness before spitting out a detestable glob of wax. Naturally, I now insist that we purchase nothing other than pure, natural, 100% real raw honey, unpasteurized, unadulterated, unimproved, un-messed-around-with.
And my wife has screwed up her face every time I bring some home. She finds the idea of honey, produced by bugs who collect nectar and then vomit it up as honey, repulsive. She's one of those special folks who taste something, find it delicious...and then change their minds when they learn something about it that they don't like.
I have often tasted some of the bland pap that she buys at the supermarket and commented that it was very poor quality honey...but now that the internet, i.e. The Holy Oracle of our times, has spoken and alerted us to the presence of counterfeit honey, she has finally decided to inform me that perhaps...maybe...possibly...conceivably...I might be right! I was so taken aback that I even extrapolated from that and suggested that she was, by extension...wrong...
Apparently, there is a rare alignment of the planets this month; that must be the explanation...yeah, that's it. I knew it had to be something cosmic...
