����"If we didn't clot we'd be dead."

����This is the sort of stuff that comes out of a car speaker when My Secret Boyfriend Eddie pops a tape into his car's cassette player.

����Catiecake knows the kind of cool people who make highly personal mix tapes. I hang out with the kind of people who think the tape from a highly scientific nutrition conference is fun listening.

����Fine.

    I just wish I could look back and find the moment where I went wrong ...

����Now normally Eddie and I have a strict No Nutrition Conference Tapes While Marn Is In The Car Rule. His real girlfriend, Dawn, actually listens to these things with him while they travel together, she shares his interest in nutrition. My feeling about that is whatever happens between two consenting adults shouldn't be judged by others.

����However, I relented about the no nutrition conference tapes rule just this once because there was a tragedy today.

����Yes.

����The restaurant down in Vermont where we eat RAN OUT OF CHICKEN LIVERS.

����I'm sure you're as shocked and appalled as I, but you CANNOT imagine Eddie's consternation.

����You see, my friend is a creature of habit and for ages now we've been going to that restaurant every week or so and ordering fried chicken livers for our lunch. It Is What We Do. Me, I go along with it because I enjoy the livers and I enjoy the company, but frankly I could eat almost anything.

����Eddie, however, is an extremely methodical man who has his little rituals, which probably makes him a wonderful insurance investigator (that's his work), but occasionally makes him rather difficult to be with if you're not prepared to be flexible yourself.

����Sooooooo, when our server returned from the kitchen and informed us that they had run out of chicken livers, for a moment I worried the shock might permanently damage Eddie. The Universe Was Not Unfolding As It Should.

����But being the brave buckaroo he is, he rallied from his spiraling death tizzy and began to study the menu ... and study the menu .... and study the menu because, frankly, Eddie'd never considered eating anything else there.

����He settled on the prime rib and admitted it was simply delicious. However, Eddie spent most of the trip home whining about how he was still hungry. To buy myself a little peace, I actually let him play part of a nutrition conference tape.

����Hoo yeah, listening to some scientist discuss clotting is EXACTLY what you want to do after a good meal.

����Believe me, before we hit that restaurant again, I'm making darned sure that they have chicken livers. I love my friends, and I would do 'most anything for them, but we all draw our lines in the sand.

����Mine, it appears, involves anything that triggers post-lunch listening to scientific discussions about clotting. Me, I just don't want to be remembered as the woman who bludgeoned an insurance investigator to death with a cassette tape.

����Which, of course, begs the question what WOULD I like to be remembered for? Hrm. It appears my little lunch tragedy has given me food for thought.