As a child, I was the typical hard headed little boy that thought I could get away with ANYthing.. It wasn’t that I had an evil heart or that I was criminal minded, it’s just that I always enjoyed doing what I WANTED to do…what made ME feel good. Sit down in my chair when I eat my dinner? For WHAT?? Its much more fun to reach up and take a couple of bites, then run off and watch TV for a little bit or play with my toys on the floor. Needless to say, I usually had to ‘catch’ at LEAST 3 whuppings a day. My parents refused to tolerate a child that doesn’t OBEY their commands. They weren’t masochistically motivated to inflict pain, it was just their way of teaching me to respect and obey authority. Because they knew that obedience starts at home. And they also knew that if they didn’t teach me how to obey and comply with rules at home, I would be at an extreme deficiency in a classroom with 20 other kids.and a prime candidate to spend some time behind bars later in life.
Sit down in that chair and eat your food!
I just glanced at her out of the corner of my eye as I slid back into my seat…I started eating a couple of bites of my food and peeked to see if she was still looking at me…nope, she had gone back to talking to my father as they ate their food. When she had called me for dinner, I had been building a Lego Fortress that protected my little plastic Indians against the evil white cowboys. Whenever I played Cowboys and Indians, I wanted to be the Indians. My favorite was the one that had the bow and arrow and hunting knife and rode his horse bareback with those leather loose pants on and one feather in his bandana on his head. As you can see, I was REALLY into what I was doing and eating dinner was somewhat of a deterrent. At the same time, the food was a contradiction. I loved the smothered chicken and rice, but I hated lima beans. Especially after I eat everything else and they’re the only things left on the plate. So I’d dawdle so long that they’d get cold. Cold lima beans?? Yecccchhh!!! Instead of really eating them, I’d stare at them and hope they magically disappear..or I’d arrange them in line, then a circle, then a square..
Stop playing with that food!!! Finish eating so you can get up from that table!!
She was starting to get impatient with me. They had already finished and she was in the kitchen at the sink starting to put up the food and wash the dishes. I had already been busted with my move of putting all the beans in my mouth, chewing them for a little bit, then spitting them out into a paper towel and putting it in the trash. So I couldn’t try that move again, cuz I had already got caught and got my az whupped for lying about it…
Did you eat all your food?
Yess
Then what is this wadded up in this paper towel in the trashcan?
I dunno.
Don’t LIE to me little boy.
I dunno
(Picking the paper towel out of the trash can and opening it up to see some half chewed up spit out liver)
Then who put this in here??
I just started crying…cuz I KNEW I was caught and was about to get a whupping for lying. Keep in mind, the whupping wasn’t for throwing the food away..the whupping was for LYING..that was THE cardinal sin in our house. I don’t care if you’ve killed the pope, don’t LIE to ME about it!!!
Your parents are your providers, protectors and teachers. If they can’t trust you for your word, then if it ever comes a time when you’re out away from them and something happens and it’s your word against someone else’s..if they know you to be a person who would lie to temporarily avoid persecution, then they won’t know WHO to believe. Unquestioning trust and support is earned and validated through actions. Once they finally got the ‘always tell the truth’ through my thick skull, they then had to teach me to control my tendency to be greedy. If there was something I REALLY liked? I didn’t want to stop with just one, I’d want to eat as much as I could without getting sick. Those nacho cheese Doritos were my favorites. I’d eat the whole big bag by myself if they didn’t watch me. Fortunately, I had parents that were ON it…
Don’t take the whole bag!
I wasn’t going to eat all of them.
So! Get you a paper towel and put some on there to eat.
Why??
As many toddlers, pre-schoolers, elementary, pre-pubescent adolescents did, I was full of questions ‘why’? It wasn’t enough that my parents were older, wiser and had been 7 long before I had..I still wanted to question their judgment. Depending on my tone of voice and the situation, sometimes they’d answer me, but most of the time, if I asked for a reason for their decree, they would get upset and retort, ‘Because I SAID so!!’ If my question of ‘why’ had any hint of disrespect or disgust in it, I might fall prey to an open handed slap upside the head. ‘Don’t talk back to me boy!!’
When that would happen I’d recoil from the pain of the blow, then grow quiet and sullen as I thought of all the evil demons that MUST be taking over this woman’s body..because I KNOW my REAL mother wouldn’t be abusing me just for asking why. This must be some type of communist regime that suppresses individual thought and any challenge against the government’s rule. Or better yet, a monarchy ruled by the evil king and queen who will only allow all the Doritos to be eaten by them and no one else. When I get big I’m going to eat ALL the Doritos I want!! Hell, I might even eat two bags of them!! And I’ll just stick my face in the bag and sneeze if I wanted to!! I know!! I’ll just stop eating all together, and starve myself and see how they like THAT! Hah! I’d starve myself so that they’ll be BEGGING for me to eat. I’ll lock my lips and shake my head, I’m not eating the food from this abusive dictatorship! I’ll probably be on the news and in all the newspapers and everything. And my mom will be crying and feeling sorry that she had been so mean to such a brave,sweet and charming little boy that had captured the hearts of the world with his refusal to eat. 7 Year Old Sunnyside Boy Enters Day 230 of Hunger Strike!!!
Because, if you take the whole bag to eat, you’ll get your germs on the other chips in the bag as you reach in to get them.
I don’t lick on my fingers until I’m finished.
No, but when you get that loose Dorito cheese on your fingers, its moisture that makes them stick, saliva and perspiration..
What?
Saliva and perspiration
What’s that?
Spit and sweat boy!.(She was losing her patience with me)
Oh
And everytime you put your hand back in the bag, you put the germs on your hand in the rest of the bag. Your germs will be spread to everybody who eats from that bag.
Curses! My motivation for my hunger strike was foiled by a logical answer! Ahh such a cunning and shrewd adversary..she was on to me I think!
And it’s not just about the germs, your daddy and I both work very hard for us to be able to have EXTRA things like Doritos.
(uh oh…I felt a ‘Starving kids in Ethiopia’ lecture coming on)
Ya’ll don’t understand how easy ya’ll got it made. When I was a kid, we were lucky to even HAVE a bag of Doritos to share between 12 of us…
Ya’ll must have gone through a lot of paper towels.
What????
(Uh oh!! Did I just say that out loud??) Uh..
What did you just say??
Uh..I said that Big Mama probably had to buy a lot of paper towels for all 12 of ya’ll.
She paused for a moment while she stared at me…trying to figure out if I was trying to be a smart az or just plain ignorant. She gave me that look a lot..
(excerpts from the soon to be released ‘Real Game’, by David E. Washington, available exclusively via Servinemup Ink)
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