Foods I Don't Understand

You would think that for someone with as many strident opinions as I have, I'd be a more picky eater.  I'm not.  I'm like a garbage disposal: I'll eat just about anything, if cut in small enough pieces.  Also, I tend to clog if you jam a fork in me.  But don't be fooled... there are certain things I wouldn't touch with your mouth.  Here is a list of those foods:

1. Mayonnaise - I can't believe that this disgusting abomination is actually a thing.  Who on earth do you know that really likes mayonnaise?  I can't remember the last time somebody said "Man, I love mayonnaise."  Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of people who don't mind mayonnaise and will still eat it, but how many dyed-in-the-wool mayonnaise fans still exist?  In fact, how many not-really-dyed-in-the-wool-but-it's-okay-I-guess mayonnaise eaters are there?  I think the only people I know who actively buy and use it anymore are my grandparents' age and older.  Actually, that's a lie.  The only people I know who actively buy and use mayonnaise are my grandparents.  We should make a pact, as a society, to send them all the remaining mayonnaise left on earth so that they have enough to last until they die, but the rest of us are just gonna stop using it.

2. Bleu Cheese - I kinda have a philosophical problem with cheese in general because I kinda have a philosophical problem with milk.  Think about it: at some point in history, some guy (because no woman would be that stupid) was thirsty enough to drink whatever came out of the dangly part of a cow.  Now, I don't know about you but I'm not sure I can trust that kind of desperation.  How did he know it was safe?  How many other animals did he try before settling on "cow?"  Do you really wanna drink after the dude whose house is filled with mason jars labeled "Bat," "Orangutan," and "Sea Snake?"  Cheese just takes that same desperation one step further: apparently, he didn't get around to one of those jars quick enough so he decided to eat whatever was in it.  Even if you can philosophically resolve all of that enough to continue eating cheese, bleu cheese just vaults into the realm of third-degree-awful because now we have to reconcile the fact that solidified dangly cow juice has turned blue.  Cheese ought not to be blue.  If you see cheese and it's blue, that cheese is the wrong color.  Anybody who picked up a hot-pink orange or a red banana at the grocery store would put it right back where they found it and never shop at that store again.  Not to mention that, as if having an incorrect color-scheme weren't bad enough, bleu cheese just tastes like it shouldn't be in your mouth, anyway.  The flavor is one that might be associated with athlete's foot or a mildewy washcloth.  Which, I guess, if you like the taste of mildewy washcloths, makes it perfect.  I, however, am on a pretty strict non-mildewy-washcloth diet.

3. Avocados - I realize that I'm in the minority on this one, but I really wish there would be some kind of sudden epidemic that wipes out the avocado industry.  In fact, I'm not entirely sure why anybody ever thought to cultivate avocados for the purpose of human consumption in the first place.  I mean, just look at an avocado and tell me it doesn't look like a dirty booger or a giant lump of bird poop.  They're all squishy and gross and they have all those wrinkles on them, like a dark-green old person.  Oh, and then you cut it open and what's that underneath?  That's right... more booger.  No thank you, entire-rest-of-the-world.  You can keep your nasty snot-fruit allllll to yourself.

That's really about it.  There are certain other things that I don't particularly care for (I'll keep those under my hat just in case you ever invite me over for dinner and I have to lie and tell you it's delicious) but these are basically my taste buds' equivalent of the FBI's Most Wanted.  I know that everybody is entitled to their own opinions and I catch flak from almost everyone else on Earth for hating avocados, I find it interesting that what tastes like sunshine and happiness to one person should taste like hammered horse testicles to another (even in saying that, I'm sure there's somebody out there who likes a well-cooked horse testicle from time to time).  But, man... my brain just can't even form a concept map for any wavelength of existence in which eating an avocado doesn't immediately trigger my gag reflex.  How do you not get that?  Is that just an enjoyable sensation for you?  Does avocado taste like chocolate to everyone else but me?

Even more than that, though, I'm astonished by how quickly we feel the need to defend our personal tastes to everyone else.  Somehow it's impossible for us to accept the idea that my favorite thing on the planet may not necessarily be yours.  I don't think I've ever met anybody who assumed a posture of casual indifference toward my stating that I don't like one of the above-mentioned foods.  It's always "What's wrong with you?" and "You'd like it if you tried it the way I make it," or  "Why don't you just stop complaining about your birthday present and eat it?"  But I'm just as guilty of this as anybody.  When people tell me they don't like my favorite things, I personalize it and act like they've insulted me.  Maybe I'm insecure and don't want to be wrong.  Maybe I'm just that passionate about sashimi and mushrooms.  But, whatever... just stop telling me I need to try your guacamole-and-bleu-cheese sandwich with mayonnaise and we'll keep being friends.