A Picky Eater? Me?

The other day I was reminiscing about our kids' early eating habits. While our daughter was willing to try just about anything, our son was one of the pickiest eaters I've ever met.

My wife responded: “Being a picky eater must be an inherited trait. No doubt he got his eating habits from you.”

“From me?” I wasn't a picky eater.”

“Then why did you flush pieces of your mom's cornbread down the toilet?”

“For some reason, Mom made cornbread laced with big globs of fat. Just the thought of chewing on a hunk of fat makes me want to throw up. So whenever I encountered a piece of it, I would stick it in my pants pocket, which I had previously lined with a piece of paper towel. After supper, I'd flush the awful stuff down the toilet where it belonged!”

“So, you were picky about fat.”

“No one in their right mind would eat big hunks of fat!”

“You also tried to get out of eating oysters, I've been told.”

“If there was one thing I hated to eat more than fat, it was snot, and those oysters had the texture, smell, and taste of a big old booger.”

“Didn't your dad make you eat them?”

“Yes. He commanded: 'Say poly-woggy and they will slip right down your throat.' That was true, but my fear was that they were going to come right back up!”

“You also tried to avoid eating anything from your mom's 'slop jar.'”

“Who wouldn't? Growing up in a large family during the Great Depression, Mom said whenever they butchered a hog, everything but the oink was used. Well, years later, she continued to use anything edible. So if a little corn, a piece of meat, or a hunk of onion was left after a meal, it would end up in the slop jar. Occasionally she would pour some of this into a skillet and fry it. It was an interesting game to guess what all one was eating.”

“Well, you didn't eat a pizza until the junior high school years. That's pretty picky.”

“That was because Dad did not allow pizza in his house. When I was only ten or eleven years old we visited some relatives. For dinner, they ordered a large box of pizza that smelled very much like hot vomit. Although this delicacy was new to us, when we got home Dad decreed that the awful-smelling stuff would not be allowed in his domain. A few years later, however, behind Dad's back, while he was working, Mom made some pretty good Chef Boyardee pizzas.”

“Your sister told me you wouldn't eat one end of a hot dog.”

“I could not bring myself to eat what I considered to be the hot dog's butt.”

“How did you know which end was the butt? They both look the same to me.”

“By definition, whichever end I began chewing on was the head.”

“I rest my case. You were a picky eater and our son inherited that trait.”

“Yeah, then he must have inherited your love of chocolate candy.”

“Guilty as charged. Hand me that Kit Kat Bar”.