Almost Good To The Last Bite

Editor’s note: Ron Nagasawa is on vacation. This column was originally published April 21, 2005.

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been on vacation. If you haven’t noticed, then it’s probably because you don’t read my column and you’re probably not reading this and it doesn’t matter. If you understand what I just wrote, then I believe I still need to be out on vacation.

I’d like to say that I went on some kind of fantastic trip or a cruise or even a jaunt to Vegas or a Neighbor Island. Actually, I just stayed home, which was good because for one of the two weeks that I was out, our kids were on Spring Break. You can never spend too much time with your children. That is unless they have a boyfriend or girlfriend, and in our 16-year-old son’s case, a girlfriend. I offered to take the family on a trip, but since our boy couldn’t stand to be away from his sweetheart for longer than 24 hours, we took a pass on the travel gig.

In a way that was OK because usually when our family travels, it’s not really a restful vacation. Plus, when the kids went back to school, I was able to spend some quality time with my wife. You can never have too much quality time with your wife. It’s an opportunity to learn things about each other that may have been overlooked once you have kids. We had the chance to go out to lunch, just the two of us. No keiki menu and we could eat adult food. My wife wanted to eat at California Pizza Kitchen. Everything we ordered, we shared the spinach dip appetizer, a salad and, of course, a pizza. What I found out was that my wife will not eat the last piece of anything. We split the salad, but she gave me more so I would finish last. She was enjoying the pizza so I insisted she have the last slice. She took a knife, cut a half-inch sliver off the remaining slice and left the sliver on the pizza tray. I looked at her and asked why she just didn’t eat the whole thing.

She didn’t answer, but I think it’s some kind of subliminal gender habit which applies to all foods except for one dessert.