Anchorboy Read Online Free Page B

calling it by its name just seemed like a waste of time for everyone. It was clear which city we were talking about. We weren’t talking about Des Moines.
    The culinary highlight of the weekend in the City would be a trip to “Bourbon Street” at the West Edmonton Mall. Anchoring the Bourbon strip was a seafood restaurant called the Pacific Fish Company, where we would gorge on mountains and mountains of huge crab legs. As a thirteen-year-old I was pretty much convinced that crab legs were the most delicious things on the planet. All that sweet meat dipped in hot butter was a really special treat. As I gotolder, like many seafood lovers I began to eat less crab and more lobster, but I never forgot how delightful it was to stop by Pacific Fish for those crab legs with my parents.
    My sister never forgot either. “Let’s do crab legs on Christmas Eve!” she said to me with great enthusiasm over the phone weeks before I was to arrive in Kelowna.
    “Sure,” I replied. Gorging on seafood the night before Christmas like good Catholics and then passing out in a peaceful slumber while waiting for Santa to arrive? What could be better than that?
    On Christmas Eve my parents and I made our way over to my sister’s house. My sister and her husband now live in Kelowna, so the holidays are a breeze. My sister does all the cooking, or most of it. We help clean up and then retreat back to my parents’ house for a peaceful Scotch or three without the grandchildren distracting us from our boozing.
    As we sat down for our meal I was delighted to be transported back to my childhood. Erin had taken care of everything: a delicious salad, steamed potatoes, and of course the crab legs, which had been secured from Costco that very day. Yes,
Costco
. I once shocked my best friends by revealing to them that I thought Costco’s meat department was underrated and that they should be buying steaks there. You would think I had told them to buy their steaks at a military supply store. Though I suppose at this point Costco sells military supplies as well. Those of us who love Costco are well aware that it is a great place to get steaks and seafood at great prices. That last sentence was in no way my attempt to appeal to the good people at Costco to stock this book in their stores. (At a reasonable discount, of course.)
    I began cracking open those delicious crab “gams” and digging out all that tender meat inside while my dad opened the wine and my mom drank it. I am a real “dipper,” so I was drowning every piece in butter. The whole experience was an absolute delight, andI congratulated my sister on a job well done. After dessert and a bit of port as a digestif, Mom and Dad and I went home for our Scotch. We promised to return bright and early the next day to watch the kids open their presents, and my sister was already planning a massive breakfast of eggs Benedict. My sister is like Giada DeLaurentiis without the boobs!
    Back at Mom and Dad’s, Food Network Canada was running a marathon of one of my favourite shows:
The Best Thing I Ever Ate
. What a great show! Food Network stars describing their favourite dishes in their favourite restaurants—it’s the very definition of food porn. It’s also the perfect thing to watch with your parents over the holidays if the World Juniors haven’t started. But around episode three, I started to realize something inside me wasn’t quite right. I don’t know if I had eaten too many crab legs or just caught a bug on the way to Kelowna. Whatever it was inside me that was turning my insides out, I was about to pay the price for it.
    The next twenty-four hours of my life would largely consist of me expunging fluid from my anus with the consistency and liquidity of chocolate milk. First it was a violent bout of diarrhea, followed by a furious bout of vomiting, and reverse and repeat, over and over. It was completely and totally unbearable. That feeling you get when you simply can’t wipe your ass