Halloween? Ferdie loved ‘em. My neighbor Marge is into weird food so she sent over some rice cakes. When those ran out, we tried cinnamon toast. Oh, yeah, we knocked off the pizza for the week. That was Marge’s idea too.”
“Sounds like a wise move,” the physician offered, stuck for anything else to say.
“So now my friend Zelda has the same problem with her little Ziggy and I’m trying to remember the name of that diet. It’s something like T -Y-K-E for Tomatoes, Yams, Keesh and Eggplant, right? Or was it C-H-E-R-I-B for Carrots, Herbs, Eggs, Root beer, Ice cream and Beets? Or was it…”
“Wait, wait,” the doctor said. “It’s B-R -A-T for Bananas, Rice, Apples and Toast. Write it down. Tell Zelda.”
“Of course. I knew it all along. Thanks, Doc. You’ve been a big help.”
Charming, Just Charming
Skillfully ducking a fork that has come flying through the air, mom gives the grinning young man across the table The Mom Look and says through clenched teeth: "DON'T you EVER do that again."
It is breakfast time. Ralphie is supposed to be eating, but instead delights in launching guided missiles at mom. Mom is disgusted and horrified at his behavior as usual, but today, for the first time, wonders exactly why. She chastises herself for being too critical. After all, he is just two. He doesn't know any better. He's learning. Then suddenly a vision hits her and a chill runs down her spine: what if he doesn't ever learn how to behave at the table?
She can see it clearly now.
Ralphie is twenty-two years-old. Somehow, he has grown into a healthy adult intelligent enough to graduate from college. He is probably employed, but at the moment, he's standing at the doorway of an apartment building where he has been invited for dinner by his new girl friend, Marsha.
Earlier in the week, at the bike-a-thon, she was impressed with his robust good looks, his winning smile, his ability to be interested and conversant about nearly anything. "Now this is someone I could get close to," she thought then. "Someone I want to get to know very much better, at my place, over candle light and Chardonnay." She invited him to dinner on Saturday. He accepted graciously.
Marsha put on her best bleached denim miniskirt and a gauzy, scoop-necked blouse that clung just enough to be interesting. She swept her hair back to show off her gold earrings and brushed just a tint of color onto her cheeks. Something New Age oozed from the stereo and the aroma of simmering spaghetti sauce filled the air. "Not bad," she told the mirror. "This boy doesn't stand a chance."
Ralphie, who called himself RJ with the girls, had sensed he was in for a pleasant evening and decided to dress up: pleated khaki wash pants, a Polo shirt and Topsiders with no socks.
When Marsha opened the door, he was outwardly cool, but stunned at how beautiful she was, radiant in a dimmed room and surrounded by flickering candle light.
"Hi, RJ, this is my place. Do you like it?" she gushed. "I sure do," he said, stepping into the room and, losing no time, added, "Can I pour the wine?"
"Of course," she said demurely, pleased that she did indeed have a chilled bottle ready. She placed a mental checkmark next to "bold, take-charge attitude."
They held the glasses high between them and stared into each other's eyes as Ralphie poured. They sipped. And then Ralphie began to blow bubbles in his glass. Her eyes widened suddenly mid-sip. He noticed and stopped, a little embarrassed, yielding a sheepish half-grin that made her think "Oh, he's so VULnerable."
They sat on the sofa then, talking and laughing, occasionally touching hands as if by accident. When they were half way through the bottle of wine, Marsha said, "I think dinner's ready. Why don't you make yourself comfortable at the table."
Ralphie was intoxicated not with the wine, but the heady aroma of fresh-baked bread, Ragu, eucalyptus candles and
Shalimar... that blouse... those legs. He was seated for maybe 30 seconds in reverie, and then he was bored. He picked up his spoon and began fishing for ice in the water glass. He put one piece in his mouth and then spat it onto the butter plate. He spun the cube around the little plate for awhile and had just started to splash the spoon in the puddle he'd made when Marsha came into the room with two steaming plates. She sang, "Soup's on." Ralphie quickly palmed the spoon and took a sudden interest in the Lou Reed poster over the radiator.
As she sat across from him, they looked into each other's eyes with oblique thanks for the pleasures that were sure to come. And then Ralphie began to eat.
He loved spaghetti. From the first day he saw his father eat it, he had made a game out of sucking in each piece as fast as he could to see if he could get it all in one breath. Now, he stuck one end in his mouth, sucked at the slithering strand, and flipped spaghetti sauce onto his Polo shirt. The second strand flipped sauce across the table onto Marsha's blouse and also hit him in the nose; he laughed with his mouth full. The third strand did it. "RJ! Use a fork!" Marsha commanded. He did the grin again. She felt badly that she'd lost her temper, but he did obey.
The other neat thing Ralphie liked about spaghetti was the way it could hang in long, gooey strands when held with a fork. If you tipped your head way back and opened your mouth, you could position a whole forkful of dangling, dripping pasta right overhead and lower it in. And this is what Ralphie did. Marsha sat staring, stunned, her mouth frozen open. "That's disGUSTing," she said, slugging down another mouthful of wine. "You need a bib." He then threw the fork over his shoulder, picked up a blob of spaghetti with his fingers, and replayed the dangling pasta trick. Marsha was frozen in shock.
"Not disgusting," he said, chewing, "Meal Play. Here. I'll show you." He wiped his hands on his shirt and moved over to Marsha's side of the table. She bravely stood her ground, not knowing whether to run, scream or cry. "Put your head back," he said.
"You're crazy," she replied, resisting only slightly. "Come on, just try it," he coaxed with that grin. He held her head in the palm of one hand as she leaned back and took a small glob of spaghetti, dripping with red sauce, in the fingers of his free hand, and held it high over her mouth. He lowered it in slowly, sensuously, letting her tongue reach for the next strand, wanting it. He teased it in and out. She snapped off a bite here and there until she was chewing wildly. He tried another handful, larger this time, with more sauce dripping in streaks down her neck and into the warm dark recesses beneath her blouse. He watched the lips move, the tongue, the teeth, and when she had devoured the last bit, he followed the pasta into her mouth with his tongue in a powerful, slippery, meat sauce kiss.
From his booster chair, Ralphie bopped the edge of his dinner bowl with a fist and sent it into a perfect double gainer before it hit the floor. "Honest to God, Ralphie," Mom said. "I'm gonna do my best to teach you proper table manners, but if I fail, well, you've always got that smile."
About Chewing Gum
"Jason will be three in a few weeks and I suppose I have to give him chewing gum," said his mom.
"Why?" asked another.
"Because I've been telling him for a year that he can't have gum 'til he's three and he won't forget it because all the older kids keep shoving pieces in his pocket," she said, more than a little irritated. "And every time I take him to the store, there by the door on the way out is one of those insidious little gumball machines where, for only a quarter, you can help the Kiwanis help the community and rot your kid's teeth all at the same time. He's been nagging me for weeks, so I'm on the hook. He must think this is some plateau in his life. Like, once he gets gum, he'll be a man."
"Well," said the mom of the four year-old, "You can't get gum out of anything. It is immune to every chemical compound known to man."
"But a friend of mine said Lestoil works."
"Oh, a friend of mine said paint thinner works," said the Voice of Experience, shaking its head. "Let me tell you. Scissors works."
Modern chewing gum is the result of years of costly innovation and experimentation by some of the most brilliant food chemists on the planet. It is a product with absolutely no fat, cholesterol or f
ood value. The flavors are pungent, and quite wonderful as the car fills with Plantation Punch or Bazooka. But when the flavor beads dissolve, the gum soon tastes like shower curtain. A few high tech formulations are designed so that gum won't stick to your face after blowing a big bubble, and, when left in a blob, is easy to peel off of most surfaces. This is good news for the people who clean the undersides of tables in restaurants. However, in order to achieve this marvel of modern chemistry, the ingredients list on the package must necessarily very nearly match the ingredients list of Glad Bags.
What we're saying here is, modern chewing gum is basically vinyl. But there are lots of varieties. There's the bubble gum sandwiched between trading cards with the photos of millionaires in baseball and football uniforms. Kids throw the gum away and keep the cards, but it's okay because the gum and the cards taste the same and the cards might be valuable some day.
Gum is the kind of thing kids like to share, meaning that when one child anywhere has a piece of gum, every child within a 50-mile radius wants some. Many children believe in sharing and it particularly warms the hearts of moms and dads when they see one youngster cheerfully fish a wad of gum out of his or her mouth and pass it to their young lad who gleefully fingers it for awhile with hands that have just patted the rabid dog down the