I'm still laughing HARD. I finally punked my husband.

Last night he made dinner. It was to be venison steaks from his recent kill. Since the meat was only recently processed and never frozen it was the freshest venison I'd ever eaten. Adam was pretty excited about serving me this dinner.

We were both doing stuff in the kitchen. He was cooking and I was cleaning out the fridge, and bagging up the giant pot of pasta sauce that I had recently made. We often eat pieces of the food while we're cooking so when he had a few cuts of steak ready to eat I didn't hesitate.

Well, I hesitated a little. It was pretty red and even though I like rare steak - I wasn't sure how I felt about rare venison. But it was only a small bite so I tried it.

It was . . . okay. Sort of chewy, rubbery, salty. But it was okay. I admitted that I wanted my next piece to be cooked longer.

"It's good." I said, "But not like regular steak." I was being generous. Like I said, it was "okay" but I wasn't looking forward to politely eating a full serving of this meal he'd worked so hard on.

"Well, it's not the usual cut?" he said with an amused smile.

"What do you mean?" I asked. He continues to smile.

WHAT. DO.YOU. MEAN!?"

"It was deer heart." he finally admitted. But he said it in a way that I knew he was happy that he got me to eat it but also a little afraid of how I'd react.

Bleh! My stomach turned and I just felt weird. I had a piece of deer heart inside of me! Like a real organ. You can tell I'm not a country girl. Blood pudding, kidney pie, liver and onions. I know the older generations of our rural area used to eat these sorts of things all the time (as I've been told, you DON'T waste things on a farm) but I was lucky in that my mom didn't enjoy these "delicacies" and never made them.

I wasn't mad. A little annoyed (and still grossed out) but not mad. It was interesting to try something like this and I would have NEVER taken even a little bite if I knew what it was.

So Adam is sort of enjoying his little trick and laughing at me. Now THAT touched a nerve. I did my usual side eye towards him and went back to my job of bagging up tomato sauce.

The Bengals were on the television so after his little antic Adam turned his attention to the game. I decided I wanted to "get him back" and began plotting. I wanted to erase that smile from his face and make him feel a little bad. But what??

In a moment that I can only describe as "uncharacteristic" I scooped myself a handful of the sauce and aimed myself towards the nearby trash can.

I doubled over, "spewing" the pasta sauce everywhere. I gagged, I gulped for air. I braced myself over that trash can and pretended like it was the morning after "Tikifest 2001".

"WHOA! OH NO!" my wonderful husband said. And then with real concern in his voice "Are you okay?"

"SARA. ARE. YOU. CHOKING?"

I shook my head, I spit into the trash can and pretended to compose myself. Then I dramatically picked myself up. I faced my darling husband and saw that his face was a mixture of concern, relief and dare I say it, REGRET.

Yes!!!! It was with great joy that I licked my hands and laughed with glee as his concern turned to defeat!!! He had been had! He was a good sport about it when I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Then I had to clean up the kitchen.

Any my clothes.

And my hair.

But I'm still laughing today.

Sara Paper