Mother is crying. This upsets me but it doesn’t make me any more likely to eat the brownish gray slab of charred meat quivering on my plate in a puddle of congealing gravy. I try to mollify her. I take the smallest piece of the vile thing on my fork and attempt to chew it.
I spit it out on the plate. I can’t bring myself swallow the thing. I’m utterly convinced this is NOT food. My four-year-old brain cannot comprehend why my mother, who I love and adore, would pull such a mean joke on me! Forcing me to eat this, this thing that is clearly not food! It might be shoe-leather but it isn’t food.
This is the sort of thing my older brother would pull on me but not mom!
Why would she do this?
I just don’t get it but the joke plays out each night at the dinner table when this grayish brown, burnt on the outside, bleeding in the middle substance shows up on my plate.
My own family tries to convince me each night that this stuff is food!
The tug-of-war begins.
The cats assemble expectantly under my chair, eager to rescue me from this awful punchline. They anticipate a moment of distraction when I can dump the vile stuff on the floor to be pounced on by my attentive feline saviors.
Did I mention my brother? Boys are great at creating distractions, especially at dinner time. Some nights, sadly, my brother is well behaved and mom has a few seconds to notice that I’m not falling for her joke. Then the pleading starts, followed by stern warnings and then the ultimate; ‘If you don’t eat your meat you can’t have any desert’!
Which I admit did work some of the time, depending on the percentage of chocolate content in the desert. But most nights I’m not having any of it.
No threat of missing desert or the coveted 8 o’clock TV show would coax me to consume the vile stuff noxiously crouching on my plate. Then come the tears, that’s the worst.
I’m not trying to upset her but she doesn’t understand I just can’t make myself eat the stuff.
We remain at loggerheads for so long that the advice of a professional is sought. Off we go to the doctor’s office. More tears; “I just can’t get this child to eat any meat!” she wails plaintively.
I feel this is an over-the-top dramatization on her part, or sublime commitment to a joke. I still wasn’t sure which.
Did I mention that my family has a peculiar sense of humor?
Well, whose family doesn’t?
The doctor frowns sternly.
Looks in my ear (not sure what my ears have to do with it).
He listens to my lungs, taps my knee with that little hammer, turns to my mother and pronounces, “If the child won’t eat meat just give her peanut butter.”
Aha, vindication! I knew I didn’t have to eat that vile stuff!
The doctor rambles on placating my mother’s histrionics but I stop listening. It was the first time I’d scored a point on the establishment and it felt good.
The dinner time tug-of-war came to an end!
For the rest of the summer a most peaceful suppertime was enjoyed by all.
Except for the cats who inexplicably started losing weight…