I so love being married if for no other reason than the pure enrichment it brings to my life, for better or worse. Guilt-free, married sex is a bonus too.

As of late however, the subject of bacon is seriously putting my marriage in jeopardy. No really, it is. Every married couple has their threshold. You know, those activities that are completely off limits because participation results in unnecessary conflict, one spouse not speaking to the other and a very chilly night? When it comes to food, do not MESS with my bacon. Before Andre and I got married, I thought painting would be the death of us. Together, we once painted a bathroom at my parent's house and after I learned my future husband was a criss-cross, sideways and sometimes diagonal painter who thought it fun to paint smiley faces on the walls and cover it up later, I was convinced he was not the man for me. Is there really any other truly proper way to paint with a roller than in an even up and down motion? I think not. I'm serious, people. Before you get engaged, try painting or wallpapering a room together. Brings out all kinds of fun and interesting animosity you never knew was there. While we're at it, I also recommend ballroom dancing. It's like marital counseling with a soundtrack and an up beat. But back to bacon--the current thorn in my marital side.

I have never been one to hide my love of all things meat. The blood pumping through my veins is hardcore carnivorous blood. I like my food to have once had a pulse. I relish in a good steak. My stomach grumbles at the smell of barbeque. I eat vegetarians for lunch. Not literally, just in theory. I get teary-eyed when I visit the meat section at Whole Foods because they carry venison and ground buffalo. I've never had ground buffalo, but it makes me feel warm and tingly to know if I wanted to eat buffalo burgers, I could. But my favorite and most cherished meat of all is bacon. And my husband doesn't want me to have it. He is a wretched, wretched man.

One thing I will say about marriage is that it certainly does keep life interesting. I've yet to decide if it's marriage itself that's so deeply fascinating or if I just happened to marry a very quirky man. Which isn't to say I am without quirks. I just happen to think my quirks are merely a byproduct of my inherent coolness whereas my dear husband Andre, quite frankly, is just weird.

And now these two quirky people are becoming one. Unfortuantely, there are certain aspects of this "oneness" I wish to reject. One of them being Andre's firm belief that ketchup is not merely a condiment, but in fact a universal sauce. I also wish to reject his insistence that bacon is terrible for the body. I have no logic to back up my sentiment other than it tastes so dang good. How can something that tastes so good be so bad. Surely God didn't create a thing as wonderful as bacon so that we'd never taste of its greasy goodness. According to Andre, there is a reason pork isn't Biblically kosher. And it's a good reason. According to Ambra, there is a reason bacon smells good. And it's because it's bacon. I don't eat pork, but I do eat bacon. You see, bacon is a separate classification of meat. It has its own category.

Believe it or not, our first real marital spat took place over the subject of bacon. It was a typical casual Sunday afternoon and we just left church to go do our usual weekly grocery shopping at Whole Limb Foods. As we approached the checkout line, Andre peeped the package of bacon I subtly placed in the cart and declared, "No way. We are not having that in our house. Let's go swap that out for a package of turkey bacon."

I clutched my pearls.

Then as if the universe had been thrust into slow motion, I repeated his suggestion back to him as a rhetorical question of sorts. I wanted to give him a second chance to redeem the blasphemous heresy that had just come from his mouth. "Turkey. Bacon?"

"Yes," he said with a calm blessed assurance that Jesus was his, "Turkey bacon is what we're buying."

How could someone be so matter of fact in their wrongness? If life were like a cartoon, there would've been literal steam coming from my ears at that very moment accompanied by a tiny thought bubble with a vignette of me tying Andre up and placing him on the train track. In the cartoon world I'd be much more violent.

Were we really about to get into an all out debate in the middle of Whole Foods over...bacon? Oh yes we were! To be quite honest, I'm not entirely sure what happened in that moment, but the next thing I knew, I had turkey bacon in my cart, and pork, I mean, bacon was no where to be found. Where was Ashton Kutcher because surely I was being punk'd. Maybe not punk'd, but definitely punked.