It's enough to put me off my lunch

Today's salad: Natto salad!

As soon as I realized the infamous natto was a part of today's kyushoku,　I hauled ass on down to the meeting room where the teachers' lunches were being meted out, calling "No natto please!" as soon as I entered the room.

I had unfortunately not been aware of today's natto content when I asked to eat with ４の１ today. I was assigned a seat by Okutani sensei next to the biggest natto fan in the whole room. His plate was heaping with natto, so much so that it almost fell off the edge of his plate. And I tried not to gag. Moved my seat as far away from his as I could, turned to watch other things, and in general tried not to breathe to deeply or cough out of fear I might be sick. I desperately tried not to watch anyone else eat as the stringy goo that suspends itself from natto made its way from plate to chopstick to mouth and down their chins and onto their desks...

One of the students exclaimed, upon seeing my natto-less plate, "Well, of course!! Foreigners never like natto!" to which I proudly mentioned my friends who gorge on it on a daily basis. Shock befell her, as she said, "But I saw it on TV!"

Really really really don't want to eat natto. I realize the unfairness of judging a food without having eaten it, but I have never liked beans all that much, and serving them to me fermented is unlikely to help. Nor can I get past the smell and sight of it all. I am desperately afraid that a force feeding would make me very very sick...