Don’t Run Away With the Cows, Unless, Of Course, You Don’t Want Anyone to Find You

In response to David's question of the week. :

P.S. This is a potential chapter in the potential book, which may have very little potential after all. (Can you tell all the rejections from agents are already getting me down?) So I figured when I saw David's post I'd not let it go to waste. I posted it here so at least a couple people could derive some form of entertainment from my writing. Pity party over. Thank you for joining me.

Dinner was served very early at my home. We usually ate well before 5 PM. We always ate dinner as a family, around the dinner table, using the proper utensils and good manners. My parents, both transplants to the Midwest insisted,

“Even though you girls are growing up in Iowa, you won’t learn to eat like you were raised in a barn.” I still do not know how people in barns eat, but I am very clear on how people outside barns are expected to eat.

For one, they always use the proper utensil for each food type. They use a salad fork for salad and not the entrée, hence the name. I’m certain it has something to do with lettuce maintaining its nutritional content when pierced with smaller tines compared to larger ones.

They never use their spoon to eat peas, even though it is much easier than a fork. Despite the round uncontrollable nature of peas, the left hand should remain in your lap at all times, and should never be used to help scoop up your food like you’re a monkey. Monkeys eat bugs out of other monkey’s hair, so no one wants to be confused with a monkey.

I can say with absolute assurance, people who eat outside a barn, should never stab their vegetables with a fork. After all vegetables are dead plants, without legs, and will not walk off the plate. So stabbing is completely unnecesary.

Eating your vegetables is so important; it must be done before you are allowed to serve yourself any potatoes, bread, or meat. Vegetables are best served slightly over cooked with no oil, butter or cheese sauce. You may add a prudent amount of salt.

There is a simple formula to follow in order to determine the number of vegetables you should eat. For larger vegetables like green beans or carrot chunks, you should eat one for every year old you are. Unless you are an adult, in which case you can max out at approximately twenty. (The sooner you learn that there are always different rules for adults, the fewer spankings you’ll get.) For smaller vegetables like peas and lima beans, you must eat two for every year old you are.

When your vegetables are eaten, or slyly stored under the lip of your plate, under the table, under your bum, or out the kitchen dining nook window, you may continue with the remainder of your meal. While there are alternate methods to disposing of your vegetables, eating them is by far the best choice. Being caught hiding vegetables, will result in a double serving of the disdained food.

At no time during dinner are elbows allowed on the table. In fact, resting one’s forearms against the edge of the table, even for the briefest of moments, is absolutely not tolerated either. In a barn that may be okay, it’s hard to say since most barns I’ve seen are not equipped to hold meals, let alone raise children, but it is certainly not okay at the dinner table.

No one over the age of two should ever grasp a fork like they are holding a dead chicken by its neck. Rather the technique is more akin to holding a pencil.

As far as cutting the food, that can be very tricky. Put your fork in your left, and knife in your right hand. Make certain you are not holding the fork like a dead chicken. Skillfully hold the food with the tip of the upside down fork tines and then saw slowly and gently with the knife. When you hit 1970’s mustard floral patterned Corelle, stop sawing immediately.

Don’t think you can cut the entire pork chop all at once and then chow down. You are allowed to cut only one piece at a time, switch hands with your utensils, put the knife down, eat the morsel of meat, and then pick up the utensils, switch hands again, and start all over. It is so complicated and time consuming, you understandably may decide eating the pork chop is not worth the effort.

Ah, but you better make that decision before you take the pork chop off the serving platter and put it on your plate. Once you have chosen the pork chop, it is yours to love and cherish forever. And you personally will be responsible for eating it.

But don’t worry, if you are unable to finish it at dinner, then it will remain on your plate, covered in Saran Wrap and will sit in the refrigerator until morning, when you will once again be presented with the meal for consumption. This time, however, it will be much cooler in temperature.

Having been thoroughly taught these dinner-time rules since before I could talk, I should have been wiser one summer evening as we sat down to eat in the dining nook of the kitchen.

After I uncharacteristically completed eating my vegetables without any prodding, I helped myself to some mashed potatoes and a slice of meatloaf. Jackie, assuming there was no possible way I could have devoured 14 green beans already, tattled,

“Debbie didn’t eat all her vegetables and now she has potatoes and meatloaf!”

I responded by grabbing my fork like a dead chicken’s neck, stuffing my mouth full of mashed potatoes, and in a dumb, muffled, potatoes oozing voice said,

“Debba dint et all ur begtables.”

This outburst was shocking and unprecedented in our family. Mom quickly excused me. She told me to take my plate and spoon and go eat in the living room. This made no sense to me, because none of the foods on my plate allowed for eating with a spoon, and we were never allowed to eat in the living room. She must have sensed my hesitation so she explained,

“If you can’t eat your food correctly with a fork at the kitchen table, you’ll eat with a spoon in the living room.” And then in response to Jackie’s snide snickering, she added,

“And, Jackie, you can join her.”

I was angry and humiliated. We both went to the living room. I stomped. Jackie skipped. We had never been allowed to eat anything in the family room except New Year’s Eve crackers and cheese, so Jackie gleefully starting finishing her dinner at the coffee table. I sat on the carpet with my plate and spoon on a side chair, too angry and insulted to take another bite. I wondered if my mother would ever stop treating me like a child.

Then, without thinking much about it, I walked out the front door.

I started running. I ran to the field behind our house, and continued passed the water tower and across the deserted road. Then I stopped to catch my breath. I was surprised to notice tears on my cheeks. This made me even madder so I continued to run passed the Legion Club, and fair grounds, and across a field of cows.

Looking back, the water tower was still well within view. So I kept running. Up and over another fence I ran to the top of a hill in another cow pasture. I finally stopped and sat on a bump in the ground. With the water tower in distant view I knew I could find my way home when I was ready.

It was a typical warm early summer evening as I sat in the quiet field. I cried over the seemingly unfairness of my life for a while. Then I grabbed a stick and poked at dried up cow pies. Next, I lied on my back and watched the clouds in the summer sky. Soon I noticed the sun was starting to go down, so I walked very slowly back home.

Just before dark, I entered the back door of the house and immediately saw my mother with bloodshot eyes and tear stained cheeks on the phone. She quickly told the police their help was no longer needed and replaced the receiver.

Her look was intense and painful.

“Where on earth have you been?” she asked and without waiting for a response continued, “Don’t you ever do that again. Go to your room!” I wisely obeyed.

I found out later that according to the police many teenage runaways go to the mall. Since the nearest mall was 40 miles away and I had not thought to bring my bike, that was out of the question. The next logical place to look, since I had not had dinner, was the restaurant in town and the two gas stations that also doubled as convenience stores. But since I had not thought to bring any money, those places were a fruitless search.

The next step was to call my friends’ houses. For my mom that meant all my friends and remote acquaintances. Mom called every single classmate she could think of. Some girls weren’t even really that good of friends. And then she called a couple boys’ homes too. Nothing could be more humiliating for a fourteen-year old. I can only imagine the dramatic tearful conversation.

“Debbie was eating like she was raised in a barn, so naturally we excused her from the table to eat in the living room with a spoon. Now she has runaway.” Pause for sniffle sounds, “Did she go to your home by chance?” Pause for nagatory response.

“No? Oh dear, I wonder where she could have gone.” Pause for loud nose blowing.“Oh yes, I am sure she is hungry, but don’t worry, we have her Corelle dinner plate covered in Saran Wrap in the refrigerator. She can eat it for breakfast in the morning. If we ever see her again.” Fade to muffled crying sounds before hanging up the receiver.