Bet it all!!!

My mom insists on everyone yelling "BET IT ALL!!!" while watching the TV show Jeopardy in her home and someone gets a daily double. I yelled it out at a Mexican restaurant the other day while my roommate and I were picking up dinner.

She sneered at me and said "We're not at your mother's house."

I don't care. It's something that is so ingrained in my psyche that it would literally hurt to fight it.

Tonight, my two roomies were on the couch, watching high quality reality TV programming and eating Carl's Junior takeout. I walked in to the living room to say something really witty and let them admire my beauty for a minute, but was interrupted by the male of the pair. He was mumbling something with a full mouth of burger. Just the way I like him. Wait...

Anyway, my female roomie grabs her dog (apparently, she understands burger mumble) and holds her down. The dog. Just making sure that was clear.

And I go- what's that about? She says- he doesn't like the dog to watch him eat.

.....

Weird, right?

.....

I mean... really? The dog totally hangs out with him all the time, but- HEY! No watching me chew!!!

So my female roomie says something about him being a freak and I stepped in to his defense. Something about "there are weird things that bother me too". But I was silently laughing at him. Really... the dog can't watch you eat?

We were talking outside a little later - mostly me laughing openly at him - and we pinpointed this eating behavior to his mom's strange eating habits. She'll eat like 3 things in the entire food chain. Sliced tomatoes, plain lettuce, and white wonder bread. Maybe hold the bread. So that's PROBABLY where his "issues" stem from.

Moms make us say and do crazy things.

What do you do that comes from your raisin'?

The creamed corn episode

I've always been a picky eater. It drove my mom BANANAS when she had to cook for me and I'd refuse to eat whatever it was.

I was a natural vegetarian- never cared for any kind of meat that I could identify as having been an animal. Hot dogs and pepperoni were fine, chicken and steak was not. It was a total mental sickfest in my head when I tried to eat meat. Gross.

Mom was always having to feed my sister and I simple foods- my sister refused to eat anything that tasted weird and I refused to eat meat, squash, brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and any kind of squash. I still do. And she still does too. Funny how some things never change.

So, mom went shopping one time when I was about 4 or 5 and accidentally picked up some creamed corn instead of the regular stuff that we loved. She felt bad that she had gotten the wrong thing, but figured she'd still try to get us to eat it. She was a single mom, trying to raise 2 kids on a tiny income and it's all she could do to keep food on the table, much less go get another can of corn because we weren't interested in the one she already bought.

My sister and I saw the messy mush of corn on our plates and pitched a fit. My sister gave in and ate hers, but I couldn't do it. It was mushy. And looked gross. And the goddamned trusty cat was not waiting for my food droppings under the table this night (he was soooo fat from hanging out with me at the table!).

I sat. And stared at the hallway. And didn't eat my corn. Mom lost it a little and went off about how unappreciative I am and yeah. I was. And I wasn't eating her fucking creamed corn.

She got up and tried to feed it to me, in one of those frantic "WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS BRATTY ASSHOLE CHILD" moments. It wasn't happening- I was a bratty asshole child and would not open my mouth to eat the stupid creamed corn. So mom did what any frazzled and crazy mother would do- she shoved an entire spoonful up my nose.

Creamed corn. In my nostril.

I have no idea what happened after that- she probably felt like a jerk and washed me up and sent me to bed. And now, looking back, I can laugh about it. I can only imagine how pissed off she had to be to actually shove creamed corn up my nose. I hope I am not cursed with a child as assholey as I was.