In the Confessional

I have a confession to make. It's something my closest friends know about me, and the fact that they're still my friends makes them either true friends or people who don't pay much attention. All right... you ready?
   I like tofu.
   This may seem like an anticlimactic confession to some, but would it change your evaluation if I mentioned that I am a Texan, born and raised? And not raised in Austin, either, where I'd be an outcast if I didn't eat tofu. Damn hippies. No, I'm from San Antonio, where barbeque is king, your pickup has a gun rack, and oil change places go out of business because a real man knows how to work on the family cars. My home town is as far North as you can get and still have decent TexMex food. It's a place where no one ever ate tofu on purpose, and if you managed to trick somebody into eating it, you'd have a fight on your hands when they found out. In my defense, I developed a taste for tofu when I was in Japan, where they coat it in corn meal and fry it up nice and crisp. But people do all kinds of things when they're traveling - especially a hemisphere away - that they don't bring back with them. My tofu habit followed me home and I took it in, gave it a name and a bath, a leash, and space at the foot of the bed.
   A man calls his masculinity into question when he eats those little white cubes. And now I've shared my shame with you. Don't judge me, just try to understand.