‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. I really don’t know what happened.’
‘Well, at least we won’t have to worry about my parents ever inviting themselves for Sunday dinner again. In fact, I doubt if we’ll be seeing them for quite some time.’
‘How are they? Did you take them to the hospital?’
‘No, they decided that they wanted to go home. Dad is sleeping and I think Mum has just about finished vomiting. I offered to stay the night but she insisted on me coming back. She’ll phone it the morning.’
‘I feel so awful.’
‘So do they.’
‘Stop, that’s not funny. It’s just that I’m not used to cooking meat, it’s so disgusting. Maybe it was gone off?’
‘Yeah, that would be my guess. Didn’t you smell it before you started cooking?’
‘What? Hell no! I barely even looked at it. I tossed it right into the pot and covered it as quick as I could.’
‘Oh well, these things happen I guess.’
‘I tried so hard. I wanted them to like me.’
‘There’s no need to cry. Look on the bright side, I bet you turned them off meat for a while. They might even become vegetarian.’