I Like Anchovies

People are team anchovy or not. There's not much middle ground. No one kind of likes anchovies. You either like them or you don't. Anchovy paste doesn't count. A good Caesar salad dressing contains a respectable amount of anchovy paste.

I joined team anchovy on August 31. I took my dad to an optometrist appointment while my mom kept my daughter. My dad couldn't see very well. I read (shouted, he also couldn't hear very well) the forms to him and filled them out. As he held a pen, I put it on the papers he had to sign. Despite not being able to see or hear very well, my dad recognized friends' voices in the waiting room and chatted with three folks he hadn't caught up with in a while. Living in a small community is nice sometimes. I like when errands and appointments turn into social outings. After his exam, we went to the adjoining vision center, where he was fitted for glasses with a whole host of corrective and accommodating features. Bifocals, anti-glare, prisms, you name it. Modern medicine is amazing. Being the social creature (I just can't call him a butterfly) that my dad was, he chatted with the woman who helped him. He loved that she was local (probably in her early 20s) and talked long enough to determine that he knew her great uncle twice removed. Or something like that.

Back to team anchovy. We stopped on the way home to pick up a few things, including my dad's favorite non-alcoholic beer and some anchovies. Dad waited in the car while I picked up the essentials from the gourmet grocery, beer, and wine store. Gourmet is a term I use loosely and generously. Small town, y'know.

When we got back to my parents' house, my mom had made pizza for lunch. My mom and daughter had already started eating, but it wasn't too late for mom to toss some anchovies on dad's pizza and finish baking it. After years of shunning anchovies, I decided to try a small piece of dad's pizza. Maybe it was sleep deprivation. Maybe my judgement was altered by the non-alcoholic beer. Maybe my taste buds have changed. Maybe my whole body has changed. I liked it. It was tasty. I had another piece. I put anchovies on some anchovy-less pizza and put it under the broiler to crisp it up. Since then, I've bought anchovies. I've ordered anchovies on a quarter of the pizza I've ordered for my family's dinner. I've eaten them on saltines.

I haven't forgotten what it's like to be on team anti-anchovy. My daughter won't let me forget. She calls them stinky fish. Four year olds are so eloquent. I respectfully put my leftovers in a separate container, and heat up the rest of the family's leftovers before I put my pizza with anchovies in the oven or cast iron skillet. But I am 100% team anchovy now.

Except my dad. And now me.
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How about you? Team anchovy or not?