Never say never?

What do spaghetti meat sauce and mixing sweet hard liquor with ice cream have in common?    Think on it a moment.

From an early age, I scarfed down chicken grilled and basted with my dad’s barbecue sauce.  I followed up with my own version of his sauce for turkey breast and pork ribs once we started grilling regularly at our apartment.   When I don’t feel like making the sauce myself, the husband and I head for one of two local barbecue joints.

Or should I say, we did.

Back to that original question.  Do you see where I’m going with this?

I will never smell spaghetti meat sauce without thinking of the last really bad stomach bug I experienced when I was thirteen, hours after a Mom’s homemade spaghetti with meat sauce dinner.   I will never think about having a milkshake* without thinking of how I threw up after consuming an alcoholic milkshake during a night of heavy drinking when I was in my early twenties.

And right now, I can’t think of barbecue without thinking about how sick I got later that night in December.  Even though the food had nothing to do with the pelvic abscess, it was the last solid food I had before surgery and being limited to IV fluids and then a liquid diet.   Only about an hour after eating barbecue, I spiked a fever and became extremely dizzy and nauseous.

The husband doesn’t get it.  I don’t get it.

Perhaps I could get back into the idea if I make my own barbecue sauce again.   On chicken, like my dad used to do.   Think of positive memories instead of this negative one.  Time will tell, I suppose.

*A Wendy’s Frosty doesn’t count as a milkshake.  You don’t drink it with a straw – you eat it with a spoon.