The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man's inmost parts (Proverbs 18:8).

When I read this Proverb, I like to translate it into my context a little bit further than the NIV takes it -- not just into the English language, but into my own experiences as well.  And as such, this is how I like to read Proverbs 18:8:

The words of a gossip are like Myle's Pizza; they go down to a man's inmost parts.

Myle's Pizza Pub is a little place just past the intersection of Wooster Avenue and Thurstin Avenue, in Bowling Green, Ohio.  It's just a stone's throw away from the southwest corner of the campus of Bowling Green State University (my alma mater), and I don't think they've changed a bit about the place since, maybe, 1981.  It's got muddy-brown shake-shingle siding, an old black-and-white light-up sign with a graphic of a pizza and a mug of beer, and the lighting fixtures inside are vintage harvest-gold chunky electric chandeliers from the mid-1970s.  A Ms. Pac-Man arcade machine guards the entrance, right next to the gumball dispenser.  The booths and tables always seem to be covered with a fine layer of grease.  Local advertisements for car dealerships, insurance companies, sporting goods stores, and lawyers call out from the menus, the placemats, and the surface of the tables, protected by a large covering of plexiglass.  It's the perfect sort of college dive that seems to magically capture the essence of one's university years.

I, for one, think their food is delicious.  Their cheesy garlic bread is to die for -- all warm and gooey on the inside but crisp and crunchy on the outside.  Their pizza sauce has a unique zip to it, and every pizza is smothered with cheese so thick that even the hungriest college boys can only handle a maximum of about four slices.  It's delicious stuff.  Even after you're completely stuffed and just hanging out after the meal, you can't help but continue picking at whatever food remains on the table.  The food just has a magnetic attraction that cannot be easily withstood.

However, even the most fanatical customer cannot deny that there is a price to be paid for the Myle's Pizza Pub experience (and I'm not talking about teh dollar amounts listed in the menu).  Some talk about it as the "Myle's Hangover."  But whatever you call it, there's this feeling that settles in your gut a couple of hours after eating at Myle's.  It's like your large intestine has been surgically-injected with cement.  All that cheese and grease takes hours and hours to work its way through your digestive system, milimeter by milimeter -- and it's not all that uncommon to need multiple middle-of-the-night trips to the restroom facilities.  Even the following day, the spices of the pizza sauce hang heavily on your breat, and your sweat seems tainted by grease.  It's a bit disgusting to think about (and so candidly describe) the unpleasant side-effects of Myle's Pizza.  However, I can scarcely think of a better illustration of the "choice morsels" of Proverbs 18:8.

The truth is that gossip really is a lot like Myle's Pizza.  In the moment, it's so satisfying.  It's fun.  It's an experience shared among friends.  But after it's really begun working its effects, you realize that you've been tainted, compromised, and gut-struck in a way that cannot be quickly absolved.  It just sticks with you.  The pleasures of the previous evening are a distant memory.  And even though you might eventually work up an appetite again -- days later -- you know that you really ought to know better than to fall for that trap again.

With Myle's Pizza, I'll grant you that there's no moral implications of repeated "relapses."  In fact, I should probably confess that I still enjoy visiting Myle's Pizza Pub whenever I'm back in BG.  But gossip -- well, that's an entirely different matter.  If at all possible, I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole.