So my blind date asks me, “What foods don’t you eat?”

Taking this seriously—and adding the caveat that I will eat what my hostess serves me regardless of how nauseating I might find it—I list the obvious: tripe, crickets, Lima beans, Jell-O. And mussels, but only because they are the bivalve equivalent of ipecac. (Them I miss.) 

Anyway, he says: “PIE.”

Pie? All pie? What about meat pie? Cream pie? Chiffon pie? Chess pie? Does this irrational prejudice include quiche? Is it the crust that bothers you? The concept of filling? How can anyone hate pie?

So he says, “If you called it a tart, I might eat it.”

And for one brief moment, I missed the narcissistic sociopaths of my past—pie eaters all.