Finish Your Meal

This is one of those PoYB posts that not many people are going to find funny. The title of this blog is subtitled "Our Neighborhood: Tales and Opinions," and though the "opinion" part tends to be universal, the "tales" segments tend to read more like an inside joke. It is our privilege and our duty to bring our neighborhood's nuances to our mass audience, but ultimately, it is only a select few that will actually enjoy the tale spun.

In this vein, I present you with the story of why Kev C***** can never finish his meal.

Well, okay, we all know why Kev C***** cannot finish any meal that is set before him. The answer is obvious—he is a pussy. A well-loved pussy, certainly, but a pussy nonetheless. So I guess the question is not why he is such a little bitch when it comes to eating food, but why he continues to be one, why he will always make bullshit excuses as to why he cannot finish, and why, despite the hours upon countless hours we have spent busting his balls on the subject, he still refuses to change this terrible and cowardly habit.

The picture at the top of this post is a picture of my plate at the end of a $20 meal Kevin and I shared at the local Applebee's on chilly Wednesday night this past winter break. Note that the only thing left on my plate are the bony remains of my BBQ ribs and a few inconsequential crumbs. Anything that was edible ended up in my stomach, despite my not really being that hungry to begin with.

Some cultures look towards muscle strength as an indication of power. Some instead turn toward brain strength. Here in our little nook of Northeast Philadelphia, we look to stomach strength. (Mike will now surely chime in and state in his squeaky little nerd voice that the stomach is also a muscle, which supposedly invalidates my argument, at which point I will tell him to go fuck his Ivy League self— you see, I find ways to knock ALL of my friends down an equal number of pegs.)

If we truly do consider eating a feat of strength and a source of power, than that makes me the prince, and Kev the pauper. After all, look at his fucking plate at Applebee's on that same night I cleaned my own plate:

Pathetic. This picture captures but a mere moment in the long history that is Kevin C*****'s abnormally small stomach. Remember all those diner trips during which Kev ordered two breakfast sandwiches and only ate one? Remember that time at Chickie and Pete's that saw Kev pussy out yet again, and so I was forced to step up and finish both my meal and the rest of his (which, of course, led to me vomiting a big mess of crab fries moments later, but doesn't that make it all that more badass?)? Remember that drunken post-lacrosse-watching dinner at Treetops, when I literally ate TWICE what he ate, and he still had to resort to hiding food UNDER HIS PLATE?! (embarrassing us both in front of the buxom Pattie Flanagan?!)

It has become one of the longest running inside jokes that I am a part of. While it's true that a lot of my friendly insults lobbed toward peers involve fabricating shit out of whole cloth, this one is entirely true. Kev's eyes really are ten thousand times bigger than his stomach.

Tonight, we trekked to the new cheesesteak shop, Wit' or Wit'out, right off of the Boulevard. It was a pretty nice joint, and I was in a good mood, so we didn't even discuss Kev's pitiful eating habits on the way there like we do before any typical food trip. I was particularly hungry, so I bought two American wit'outs. Kev bought one steak and cheese fries. I finished both my steaks before he finished his first.

And STILL, an entire half of the cheese fries order remained on his plate! I didn't even call him out on how much of a weakling he was being; instead, I questioned: "Why can't you just finish them?! The power to stop all this heckling is in your hands! You may even avoid a fiery blog post about your shortcomings if you just finish these fucking fries just this one fucking time in your goddamn life!!"

But there they sat, greasy cheese dripping off that handful of limp uneaten french fries. In the battle of Man vs. Food, Food always wins, and Kev is never a Man.

Of course, the joke may be on me, because I don't see any beer belly on him.

Still, Kevin C*****, I implore you to hang your head in shame. Because you never fucking finish your meal.