The fear of the unknown, or just the love of food?

We had just finished dinner the other night after work at one of our favorite pizza joints. It’s a local’s spot that serves up terrific oven baked pizzas, assorted pastas, and Italian plates. One of those spots where you can order up normal human sized plates, or dive head-in and be a total gluttonous man-beast  slob freak and order a “family style” portion. Of course, we went with the “food baby coma” size pasta dish along with a medium pizza.

As usual, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, and as our bellies expanded to resemble the scene in Alien where the creepy critter decided to bust out singing and dancing, we waved the white flag. “No mas”! We did the “check please” signal to the waiter. As he came over to observe the damage we had done to ourselves, we asked to have the rest wrapped to bring home and feast on for lunch or dinner the next day. We are the types to not just waste perfectly good eats and throw it away. Plus, we’re paying hard-earned money for that food, dammit!

Perhaps we are also just fatties, plain and simple, such as Mr. Creosote in the famous Monty Python skit. “Just one wafer thin mint! Fuck off, I’m full! Bring me my bucket!”

Now, here is what I don’t understand about some people, as it seems many are divided on this practice. I have spoken to many who refuse to eat leftovers. No, really, they are the types that would literally go to an expensive restaurant, eat maybe half a meal, then tell the waiter to dump the rest. WTF? It doesn’t even have to be an upscale classy place. It can be any kind of eatery – low, medium, pricey. Why waste tasty food and money?

It’s a kind of weird snobbery in my opinion. Some of these people are to uppity perhaps to bring home leftovers in a doggy bag?

“Oh, dear, Bernice, I heard the other night that Hildegard was seen carrying a leftovers baggy into her Upper East Side brownstone. How dare she besmirch the neighborhood like that!”

“Yes, Eunice, but I have also heard our neighbor, Abernathy, has been known to slum it at Subway in secrecy. What is the world coming to? Have you seen the size of those foot-longs? Totally beneath the character of our kind. Can you even fathom putting that in your mouth?”

“Well, Muffy, your husband came over the other night while you were out playing Bridge with the ladies. Talk about a foot-long! Oh, my word, did I say that out loud?”

I can understand the resistance to bringing home leftover food from a restaurant if you’re the type to put it in your fridge and never eat it. It becomes forgotten. Pushed to the back of the shelf. A man lost in time. One day you realize it’s still there, and has become a science experiment. The type of nasty bacterial substance that becomes all hairy and moldy. Weirdly gelatinous. You can’t even remember what it started out as, how long it has been there, and what the heck is that smell? You’re almost afraid to touch it for fear of being consumed alive by it.  Some sort of blob-like creature from space.

All in all, I have no fear of leftovers. Long as you eat it within a responsible time frame. In fact, after my run today I am going to dig into the pasta and shrimp dish we brought home in a mega doggy bag. I think it was a day ago? Three nights ago? Or, was it two weeks?

Wait, let me lift off the cover and take a peek……