boy saved from nagging mother by flash fiction!
A Towering Taco Salad of Love
He brings home a note from the school nurse, height and weight. 6’5”, 245 pounds. I can smell cookies on his breath, and I spot a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper sticking out of his coat pocket. I do a quick sweep of his bedroom, find an empty bag from Albertson’s, chocolate chip cookies, ditto Doritos bag, (family sized, that I did not buy), both under his desk. Also another empty Diet Dr. Pepper very near to his trashcan. Further investigation leads to a Mr. Goodbar wrapper, age unknown, and a Milky Way, mint, in the pocket of a sweatshirt jacket.
We discuss the purpose of the trashcan and the purpose of the allowance. He offers that the trash on his floor is very near to the trashcan and I offer something about no cigar, in return. I print off a color copy of the food pyramid at work, and tape it up on his bedroom wall, next to his computer.
Eating healthy food would be a good idea for us as a family, would it not? He offers to take us out to McDonald’s, his treat, a healthy restaurant where I can get a side salad. He admits he doesn’t actually have any money, since his allowance is set aside for pumpkin pies for his math class on pi day. (3.14, he says, offering proof of the efficacy of this lesson).
We are in a state of détente. The ladies in the cafeteria at school report he has a snack of a cinnamon bun or two at break time, around ten, then lunch at twelve thirty. He usually has two lunches, but they beam and chuckle and tell me he is growing and is always hungry! What a good eater! What excellent manners! He is such a nice boy. He knows how to get on the good side of ladies behind cafeteria lines.
I cut off his allowance and strongly recommend he be satisfied with one lunch at school. He is not happy, but he doesn’t understand the images in my mind, of him at 250, then 300, then 500 pounds, now he’s 700 pounds, now he can’t get out of the door of his apartment, he’s both too tall and too wide, and if there’s a fire, he’ll burn up, and if he has a heart attack, the paramedics will have to cut through the walls to get to him. It’s happened before and I’m sure if those boy’s mothers had the opportunity to go back and nip some bad habits in the bud, they would take that opportunity.
I think I put too much love in his food. Breast milk and organic bananas as an infant, even well past infancy, if I must tell the truth, and he never even noticed when I decorated his peanut butter sandwiches with raisins, little smiling faces of iron to make his blood strong. At this point, though, he’s eighteen, and I am quite exhausted by it all, by the cooking and eating and feeding the boy, pouring my love into him three times a day, with snacks. For myself I would just like a salad.
We’re having taco salad for dinner. Three types of lettuce, with organic spinach, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes; I cook a pound of hamburger in some salsa. I mound up the salad on the plates, and pour the meat and salsa over the cinder-cone of lettuce so it runs down the sides like lava. His eyes light up.
“There are lots of ways you can have salad as a healthy, main-dish meal,” I offer. He’s eating very fast, his cheeks bulging. “Slow down! What’s the big hurry? You’re going to choke.” He tries to swallow. “Are you choking? You look like you need the Heimlich Maneuver.”
“There’s a new Power Ranger’s episode coming on in ten minutes,” he says. He shovels the last forkful into his mouth, throws up both hands like he’s just fallen across the finish line, a fierce sprint. “Thanks, Mom.” His voice is very thick. “That was great, but it would be even better with some cheese on top.”
“Could I suggest you learn to be happy with what I give you?”
“What do we have for desert?”
“There’re some Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches in the freezer. You can have one. Only a hundred and forty calories, with no added sugar.” I got the large package of Skinny Cows, with mint flavor, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. They come in cones, too. I bet he would like the cones.
In the middle of the night, I hear footsteps on the kitchen floor, and the sound of the freezer door quietly opening.
He brings home a note from the school nurse, height and weight. 6’5”, 245 pounds. I can smell cookies on his breath, and I spot a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper sticking out of his coat pocket. I do a quick sweep of his bedroom, find an empty bag from Albertson’s, chocolate chip cookies, ditto Doritos bag, (family sized, that I did not buy), both under his desk. Also another empty Diet Dr. Pepper very near to his trashcan. Further investigation leads to a Mr. Goodbar wrapper, age unknown, and a Milky Way, mint, in the pocket of a sweatshirt jacket.
We discuss the purpose of the trashcan and the purpose of the allowance. He offers that the trash on his floor is very near to the trashcan and I offer something about no cigar, in return. I print off a color copy of the food pyramid at work, and tape it up on his bedroom wall, next to his computer.
Eating healthy food would be a good idea for us as a family, would it not? He offers to take us out to McDonald’s, his treat, a healthy restaurant where I can get a side salad. He admits he doesn’t actually have any money, since his allowance is set aside for pumpkin pies for his math class on pi day. (3.14, he says, offering proof of the efficacy of this lesson).
We are in a state of détente. The ladies in the cafeteria at school report he has a snack of a cinnamon bun or two at break time, around ten, then lunch at twelve thirty. He usually has two lunches, but they beam and chuckle and tell me he is growing and is always hungry! What a good eater! What excellent manners! He is such a nice boy. He knows how to get on the good side of ladies behind cafeteria lines.
I cut off his allowance and strongly recommend he be satisfied with one lunch at school. He is not happy, but he doesn’t understand the images in my mind, of him at 250, then 300, then 500 pounds, now he’s 700 pounds, now he can’t get out of the door of his apartment, he’s both too tall and too wide, and if there’s a fire, he’ll burn up, and if he has a heart attack, the paramedics will have to cut through the walls to get to him. It’s happened before and I’m sure if those boy’s mothers had the opportunity to go back and nip some bad habits in the bud, they would take that opportunity.
I think I put too much love in his food. Breast milk and organic bananas as an infant, even well past infancy, if I must tell the truth, and he never even noticed when I decorated his peanut butter sandwiches with raisins, little smiling faces of iron to make his blood strong. At this point, though, he’s eighteen, and I am quite exhausted by it all, by the cooking and eating and feeding the boy, pouring my love into him three times a day, with snacks. For myself I would just like a salad.
We’re having taco salad for dinner. Three types of lettuce, with organic spinach, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes; I cook a pound of hamburger in some salsa. I mound up the salad on the plates, and pour the meat and salsa over the cinder-cone of lettuce so it runs down the sides like lava. His eyes light up.
“There are lots of ways you can have salad as a healthy, main-dish meal,” I offer. He’s eating very fast, his cheeks bulging. “Slow down! What’s the big hurry? You’re going to choke.” He tries to swallow. “Are you choking? You look like you need the Heimlich Maneuver.”
“There’s a new Power Ranger’s episode coming on in ten minutes,” he says. He shovels the last forkful into his mouth, throws up both hands like he’s just fallen across the finish line, a fierce sprint. “Thanks, Mom.” His voice is very thick. “That was great, but it would be even better with some cheese on top.”
“Could I suggest you learn to be happy with what I give you?”
“What do we have for desert?”
“There’re some Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches in the freezer. You can have one. Only a hundred and forty calories, with no added sugar.” I got the large package of Skinny Cows, with mint flavor, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. They come in cones, too. I bet he would like the cones.
In the middle of the night, I hear footsteps on the kitchen floor, and the sound of the freezer door quietly opening.
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