Asparagus

Tonight my roommate cooked asparagus for dinner and it smelled like one thousand cats had just peed everywhere. Of asparagus, Proust once said: "[It] transforms my chamber-pot into a flask of perfume." Proust also spent nearly his entire life in a cork-lined room.

I have hated asparagus for as long as I can remember. Eating it always reminded me of eating a slimy, plump, green worm bloated with urine. The worst is when it is slightly over cooked and so it’s too soft to cut or bite through cleanly, so you end up having to tear through a bunch of stringy, wet asparagus strands. The only way I could choke it down was by slathering it in butter first. I also don't think it's healthy to eat a food that so drastically alters your urine so quickly.

A little known fact about me (or perhaps very well known, depending on who is reading this) is that I once worked on a farm harvesting asparagus. It was one of the best times of my life and is, I’m sure, directly responsible for why my back now looks like a well-loved leather purse. Although I hate asparagus, it was a pretty fun vegetable to harvest, and one time I even tried it raw (word to the wise: asparagus is way better when consumed raw because it tastes almost identical to garden peas, although I am not sure if it only tastes like this when freshly sliced from the ground). I especially liked harvesting it because I always felt like I was thwarting its will to live by constantly cutting it down.

While I worked on the farm I always thought I was engaging in a slightly unethical activity by bringing asparagus to the masses, as well as encouraging my own family's consumption by bringing home free second-rate asparagus. That summer taught me a lot about myself--namely that I am willing to do just about anything for a very nominal amount of money.

Our bodies often warn us that a food should disgust us

By wreaking havoc on our digestive functions.

What is it about the asparagus

That so grossly alters our renal productions?

So how is it that one continues to devour with glee

A vegetable that so violently alters the smell of our pee?