TIFU by being vegan and possibly giving my family botulism
I am vegan. My husband is not. For New Year’s Eve we ordered a giant box of Mediterranean food that was mostly vegan with a few non-vegan sauces for the husband. Last night, I was looking to use up the last of the nonvegan garlic sauce. Since it's only a few days old I figured it had to be fine and mixed it into my husband’s portion of spaghetti.
As hubby takes his plate to the TV to eat I hear him in the other room going, “Oh god! Oh god!” I think, damn, he really likes it. Until he marches back into the kitchen announcing that it was bad, off, no good. “It tastes like chemicals!” he says. I take a bite off his plate, because that’s what people do when something is bad. The militant vegans will probably be here soon to tell me that this single action probably took out a big section of the Amazon and killed the last forest fairy but anyway. I still think it’s fine but except for these stolen bites I’ve been vegan for a long time, so maybe I can’t tell anymore. We dump his plate, throw out the rest of the sauce, feed him off of my portion of dinner, and resolve to have ice cream later to make it up.
Except something is nagging me. After I finish my dinner I go back to the garbage can and pull the sauce out. It’s kinda...bubbly. I can jellies and vegetables sometimes and start freaking out: *oh my god I just ate botulism.* I call out for husband. My vision is greying. I am having a panic attack. We live in an urban area, hospitals are at capacity with COVID, and *I just gave us botulism.*
Husband tells me to calm down as I'm taking off my sweater and pants to get maximum airflow on this rolling ball of overheating anxiety attack. Botulism doesn’t taste bad, he says. I challenge him to show me where an authority says that something that tastes bad can’t coexist with botulism. I decide while he’s doing that I’m going to return to the arms of my teenage fling with bulimia.
After I’m done horking up enough mangled spaghetti and bread to convince myself that that cursed stolen spoonful of botulism must have come out too, I clean up and rejoin my husband. He says, show me this sauce. So we go to the fridge, in which I’ve wrapped up the remaining sauce in order for the CDC to test it for botulinum when I am in the hospital with paralyzed vocal cords. My husband examines it, prods it, and suddenly sticks his finger in it to taste it before I can stop him. “Huh,” he says. “That tastes good," he announces. “Something else must have tasted funny! You’ll be fine!” Husband comes in for a kiss.
I stop him from all that. Not only am I relatively fresh from a 10 minute fling with the toilet but he’s somehow got stuff all over his wildman COVID beard. It looks like...clear butter?
Husband stops in his tracks. “Oh my god," he says. "I ate hand sanitizer.”
Um what.
You see, he had to go physically to work today, which fortunately is rare, and while continually sanitizing his hands, was somehow also managing to sanitize his beard, with globs and globs of hand sanitizer. Now, my husband is not a gracious eater. Apparently, he combed his fork of spaghetti through the hand sanitizer. The spaghetti was just along for the ride.
And yet: I feel like *crap* today. Is my digestion messed up from the animal products in that cursed bite of garlic sauce? Is my system upset at throwing up last night (like...a lot)? Do I have COVID? Do I have botulism? **Who knows.** Welcome to 2021, spin the wheel and claim your prize.
If my Reddit account goes unusually quiet, assume I’m paralyzed from botulism after all I guess. My husband may just have to go on through this cruel world eating hand sanitizer without me.
TL;DR : I am a vegan who can't tell if animal-based food is safe to eat, and my husband is a caveman who thinks hand sanitizer is edible.