The McRib Experiment: The Fine Print

In my continuing quest to persuade my fiance Theresa to eat a McRib, I've now had to resort to, in the words of former President George W. Bush, some trickeration.  Previously, Theresa turned down my offer of ten dollars (eighty-seven cents Canadian) to partake of the tasty McSandwich so I was forced to develop Plan B, which went something like this:

Completely out of the blue, I presented Theresa with a certificate for a free "expectation free" massage, and when I say "expectation free," I trust that all of you in committed relationships will know precisely what I'm talking about.  It was just going to be a massage.  That's all. 

So a few nights ago, after a long day's work, Theresa decided to redeem her certificate.  "This is really nice," she said.  "What did I do to deserve this?"

"What did you do?  Nothing.  I just know you've been working hard, so I thought I'd help you relax," I said, stifling a sinister chuckle.  "Just lie down and let me take it from there."

So she received her half-hour massage.  All humility aside, I think I did a pretty good job.

"That was nice," said Theresa.  "I feel so spoiled."

"Well, you know, you did have the certificate.  When something's written out like that, you're kind of obligated to follow through, right?"

"That's right, and I appreciate it."

The trap, my friends, had been set.

The next day, she called me at work.  "I just wanted to thank you again for pampering me last night.  It was very thoughtful of you."

"Yeah, well, you did read the fine print, right?"

Blurry I know, but you get the idea.

I forgot to tell you earlier, at the very bottom of the certificate, I included a line of very small print, and I do mean very small.  I think I set the point size at six.  Five, perhaps.  Also, I changed the font color from standard black to a pale gray, not too much different than the color of the paper the certificate was printed on.

 But it was there so it counts, right?  Who's with me on this?

"The fine print?  What are you talking about?"

"The fine print on the certificate.  Wanna know what it said?"

"I'm not eating a fucking McRib."

"Au contraire," I said, because whenever possible I like to work a little French into the conversation.  "According to the certificate, which is now valid because you accepted the promised massage, the bearer must consume one McRib sandwich."

"Dammit," said Theresa, "I should've known there was a catch.  And here I've been thinking how wonderful you are for taking care of me just because you wanted to.  But you didn't really want to, did you?  It was all part of your plan to make me eat a stupid McRib."

"Uh, well, no," I said, trying desperately to dig myself out of this one, "I wanted to give you a massage because, like I said, you've been working hard.  But then I thought I'd, you know, throw in the thing about the McRib."

"You're mean."

So once again, my dog Munson enjoyed a McRib dinner.  And when I went out in our back yard the next day, I learned something kind of interesting.  Without putting too fine a point on it, it seems that the canine digestive system does not adequately process chopped onions.

Now it's on to Plan C.  I don't know what that is yet, exactly, but I'll come up with something.


TO BE CONTINUED . . .


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