Wherein I risk losing at least three loved ones from my life thanks to what I'm about to say.

I like mayonnaise.

To clarify, this is shocking because if you know me, I have lead you to believe I did not like mayonnaise.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like I was trying to mislead you. But the truth is my hatred of mayonnaise was not an inborn trait that I inherited from my parents and there was a time when I did like it. While I don't think it was a necessity on my sandwiches like syrup is on my pancakes, or a six pack of Smirnoff Ice on my Friday nights in college, it wasn't like I refused or asked for my burgers without it.

But then came the day that mayo turned on me. There I was sitting in the beach, trying to enjoy my Togos sandwich to the sound of the crashing waves and something about it didn't taste right. There was a pungent and almost "stingy" quality to the sandwich that reminded me of blue cheese. I know I didn't order blue cheese on my sandwich so I figured the only explanation was bad mayonnaise. Not willing to risk food poisoning, I opted to throw the sandwich away and from that day forward, I had no interest in eating mayo on anything.

I began to rekindle my relationship with mayo while I was pregnant. I found myself craving it. Really, I was craving sandwiches in general which apparently you are not supposed to eat because of the nitrates that can be found in lunch meat. Actually, you can eat lunch meat as long as you heat it in the microwave until it is steaming. Mmmmmm, hot, steamy lunch meat. I wasn't about microwave my cold cuts and since my brain is convinced that mayo is "gross" the baby must be wrong; I couldn't possibly want to eat a sandwich. Then one day at a birthday party, hugely pregnant and ravenous, I was presented with two choices: pre-made deli sandwiches and some kind of Thai peanut chicken satay. Normally I'm a fan of chicken satay but turns out the baby was not and suddenly I was very much aware that there was a peanut dish being served and not in a good way. So I said screw it and took a sandwich, baby poisoning nitrates and all. (Gasp! She what?? I know, I'm very irresponsible. But as far as I can tell he seems fine without any sort of noticeable twitches.)

The sandwich? DELICIOUS. But it was probably just a pregnancy thing, right? Turns out, not so much. There is an adorable little market down the street from our house that makes sandwiches so amazing that it makes me want to cry. But there's was something about the first sandwich I had from this place that was different and was even better than any of the sandwiches I had enjoyed before. Then I realized what I had done: I forgot to ask for no mayo.

So there you have it people! I LIKE MAYONNAISE!!! And I am not afraid to admit it anymore. Really, I am not all that surprised. Could I really blame the mayo for my bad sandwich? No. And how could I when it was my fault that I chose to purchase food from from a restaurant that I have actually used to describe how gross something else is that is not that restaurant (i.e. "Ugh. Nasty. It smells like a Togo's in here.")

Do I wish that it wasn't mayo that I started to like again and something slightly more healthy like say raw fennel or wheat grass smoothies? Sure. And you know, maybe I will come around on those things too someday. I wonder what they would taste like with mayo on them?

(Stay tuned for my next post which I shall call, "Why Heather is Sad and Needs to Exercise More.")