Food. Our conversations revolve around it, though we sometimes veer severely off course with the mere quirk of words.

He recently served fish sticks of the Van de Kamp variety when he reminisced about serving them to a young girl; she loved them so much she asked him to prepare “fish dicks” again the next day. Little girls — we say they’re nice and made up of spice, but who knew their minds could dream up of such things?

It’s like me and the word steadfast — along with quite a few other words I can’t remember, except for one:

Ketchup.

Imagine going to the grocery store. Your companion tells you that you need to get more ketchup. Unfortunately his head turns away at the last moment, and you don’t quite catch all of what he just said. Your mind immediately fills in the blanks and justifies whatever answer it puts in. Anyway, it really did sound like he said “cat shit”, and you do recall him saying you were low on kitty litter. You figure “cat shit” is his pet name for the litter (excuse the pun), and just to be sure, why not verify?

“Cat shit?” you say.

“Oh yeah,” he says. “We really need to get some cat shit. It goes so well with rice and has a lot of protein. I use it in almost every dish I make.”

“You said ketchup, didn’t you?”

“No, no. I definitely said cat shit. The cat doesn’t make nearly enough for our needs. We probably should get another cat to fulfill our daily requirement.”

“Come on…”

“In fact, instead of feeding the cat so much, we should eliminate the middle man entirely and just buy the cat shit. Then maybe the cat can take a vacation or something. Because that’s basically what she is — a cat shit making factory. The food goes in one end, and the–“

“Okay, okay already! Sheesh.”

I seem to be the ideal target for his humor; I’m clumsy, and I have a mind he compares to that of George’s Gracie. Never a day goes by where I fail to amuse him. It seems to be my lot in life.

*Sigh*

I’ll bet cat shit goes really well with fish dicks, though.

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