Vegetables are Good for You

Index

24.January.2005

People are always coming up to me and asking me why I can’t be serious. And when I say People, I mean my children. I suppose since I look like an adult, they naturally expect me to act like one. Ha! And by Ha, I mean of course I can be serious. When I sleep I am very serious. It’s the rest of the time that I must be having trouble with.

Our oldest daughter received a Beta fish for her fifteenth birthday, which had the bad grace to die less than two weeks later. I asked my husband to please flush the mortal remains of the fish, because I just couldn’t bring myself to do so.

My five year old saw the empty fish bowl on the counter and got curious.

Her little face scrunched up, she put her hands on her hips and said, “I hope he doesn’t do that to me!”

I tried not to laugh as I promptly informed her that she was far too big to flush down the toilet so we’d have to find something else to do with her. She yelped and ran out of the kitchen.

My credo is to have fun with my children while they’re young. It’s the best time to mess with their little minds. Now please don’t start sending me angry emails about how horrible it is that I told my daughter we couldn’t flush her down the toilet. I’d never try to flush her.

I also believe in being honest with my children. She really wouldn’t have fit down the porcelain throne. Do you know how much plumbers charge? Not to mention the endless questions about how she got down there in the first place.

“I’m sorry officer. I have no idea how she got stuck in the toilet. Yes, I realize she’s not a fish.” I wouldn’t mess with them if they didn’t leave me openings so big a Mack truck could drive through. For example, take my teenage son. Normally a bright kid but for some reason he believes everything I tell him. Case in point:

I watch a one year old for a friend during the day. She is trying to wean him from breastfeeding and get him on whole milk. We don’t drink whole milk at our house, so she brought a container of whole milk over for the baby to drink during the day. I came into the kitchen and caught my thirteen-year-old son drinking the whole milk.

“Chris! That’s not ours, it’s the baby’s milk! Don’t drink that!” Poor Chris turned three shades of white.

“It’s the baby’s milk? You mean it’s…it’s…. it’s from Jenny??” Jenny is the baby’s mom. As he said this I nodded my head yes and he immediately ran over to the garbage can and starting spitting. I turned around so he couldn’t see me laughing my head off. He thought he’d drunk breast milk and I was in no hurry to dissuade him from believing so. I didn’t actually lie to him; it was Jenny’s milk. She’d brought it over for baby Dillon, it just wasn’t from her body. Now every time I see my son I say, “Got milk?” at which point he makes gagging noises and runs away from me. The joy of messing with their little minds is one of the perks of being a parent, or even an aunt.

My sister has two little girls, Jessica and Nicole. I once casually mentioned to them that eating broccoli would cause them to grow boobies. First I told them that eating broccoli would put hair on their chests, but for some reason they didn’t buy that one so I switched to the female version of consuming this delightful vegetable.

“Just look at your Mom! She loves broccoli!” Now one of them won’t touch the stuff and the other one is trying to figure out how to make broccoli milkshakes. My sister frequently brings up the Broccoli Debacle to me and thanks me for planting this in her daughter’s impressionable minds. I tell her to think nothing of it. Just wait till they find out what spinach does.

Index

editor's note: due to stoopid people who can't behave in public (ie, spammers) we have had to turn off the comment feature on our older columns. We'll try waiting a while and then turning it back on to see if they get bored and go away. In the mean time, we will manually add any REAL comments if you email them to us. The link is below.

OMG Pam..thats friggin hilarious. Im sorry I took so long to get around to reading it. Keep up the good work.
Paulie's Mama
Elizabeth, NJ USA -

This heah is one o'them real fine column type thingys, girl. Why if'n I didn't know no better I'd say you went all the way to the 5th grade! If'n i evah need to shuck a yankee, i'm gonna come find ya to do tha shucking. Shoot fire, we'un heah in the back country put fire crackers in the outhouse hole when kids o' iron go. Yee haw...them younguns come flyin' outta that there honey hole like they sat down on the seat and shook up a hornet's nest. Saaaaayyyy. that there is a good idear. See ya. Gotta go find me a hornet's nest. Y'all come ta see us, now heah?
The great agent-o!
Udder Spout Junction, NC USA -

So... the million dollar question: Did Chris ever find out the milk wasn't actually from Jenny's body??? LOL Great Word FEAST Pam! :)
Marian
Riverdale, UT USA -

Good job your doing Pam... keep it up.. Sounds like you have Julie going. L Trudy
Trudy
Seatt;e, WA USA -

Pam, you have such amazing talent and humor. You seem to capture the essence of parenting and turn it into such a comedy, that it makes parenting almost bareable. :)
Spasm
Whacko Central, USA USA -

Loved your new column, "Vegetables Are Good for You"!! I especially loved the part about your son and the supposed breast milk! Hysterical!! Great column! I always enjoy your humor, Pamela. Good stuff!
Libby
Fullerton, CA USA -

This column totally cracked me up. I love the part about the fish and the toilet!
Caramo
USA -

Funny! Thanks for the chuckle.
Lori
Los Alamos, NM USA -

My Mother was right, I should have listened to her. She always said that she tells me what to do because she learned from her mistakes. I didn't realize that one of her mistakes was not eating her vegetables either, she is a 34 AA! Seriously, just try being a 42 B, they just don't make those! Very funny!
Jenny Proctor
Puyallup, WA USA -

Ha! another gem, Pamela. I can just see your son. Got milk? You're a real devil aren't you. But revenge is sweet--especially on the ones you love. I love the broccoli incident. I'll have to try that one on Sarah. Not long ago she patted my bossom and said "I just love these." Then she asked me if she could have some. It took me a minute to figure out she meant the boobs--not what the boobs used to exude for her. (She weaned herself long, long ago at 10 months.) I'm not sure what the fruit-vegetable-boob connection is but I'm just sure there is one. My earliest memory of boobs was trying to create them down my own shirt with a couple of apples. They kept slipping. Got milk? :-) Lisa
LIsa
USA -

Good timing, Pam. I needed that chuckle. Thank you.
Con
Edinburg, TX USA -

ROFLMBO!!! "Pam, warping little minds and making adults laugh their heads off since 1989" Ok, so I don't know what year you really began, I couldn't find indication of that on your site. :P~ But I I had to come up with something for my little slogan there. ;o)
Carolyn
CA USA -

You are positively EVIL! You have damaged my girls. Just two days ago Nicole asked me if it really DOES make your boobies grow big. We had another discussion at the dinner table with teenage brothers present about how Auntie Pam has warped their minds. Is this your way of having me comment on your column!!!??? Wait till I tell Allison & Ashley what Happy Meals does to them!
Julie
Shoreline, WA USA -

I LOVE messing with little minds... :-) Keep having fun messing with your little minds, and keep making us laugh by telling us about it!
Jeri Lynn
shoreline, WA USA -

Scripts modified from Matt Wright's guestbook. His scripts can be found at Matt's Script Archive

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