THE DINING ROOM CHRONICLES
Almost every evening, my daughter Mary and her better half, Kevin come over to keep me on my toes and my brain active, by playing card games, scrabble or dominos with Martha, Joe and sometimes Chris. Some of our conversations have bordered on the ludicrous, so Mary has begun taking pen to paper to save them for posterity.
That reminded me of a dinner conversation many years ago. My children invariably would get into arguments at the dinner table, perhaps to create a diversion so they could feed peas to the dog while I tried to keep the peace.
To let them hear how horrid they actually sounded, I had a brilliant idea and planted a tape recorder under the dining room table and just let them be their usual quarrelsome, noisy selves. “That will show them“, I thought.
After dinner, I retrieved the tape and told them, “Listen to this, I am going to teach you a lesson“, and smugly pushed the play button.. “Just hear how you sound when you fight“, I admonished them. As I self-righteously played it back to them, there was a thunderous noise which swelled to a crescendo, sounding like a jet taking off at close range. Interspersed between the babble and the jet taking off, my sickening sweet voice could be heard loud and clear, “Please pass the butter, Paul” and “Please use your napkin, honey”. More babble and then my syrupy voice again, “So what did you do in school today Eddie”? “Please use your fork, honey”.
By that time the kids and I were laughing uncontrollably. One of the kids summed it up beautifully, “We learned a lesson alright, mom”. “Never put the tape recorder under your chair“. and, “You’re a terrible actress, but you sure are funny”.
I made it, you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes
Ed made it a habit to eat lunch at home every day, as he worked less than a mile from our house. One day in particular, I called and asked if he would stop at the store and bring something home for me to cook for our dinner.
In a disgruntled voice, he responded, “You don’t have to fix meat and potatoes every night, you know”. Stung by his obvious displeasure, I asked “What would you suggest, as we have no eggs, no meat, and no cheese in the house“. “If you would use your imagination once in a while, you should be able to come up with something that doesn’t involve my going to the store on my lunch hour”, he retorted.
When he finally came home, he tossed a roast on the table and with a disgusted “Here’s your meat”, walked out and went back to work.
“Now that is so unfair! We only have one car, I have six hungry kids at home”, I fumed to myself. “Well, I’ll show him”, “He’ll see my imagination at work.” So I fixed a beef stew for dinner, set the table and made sure to have the plates all ready with the stew already on the plates.
On Ed’s plate, however, I had artistically arranged stalks of celery, thinly sliced carrots, and an artful stack of pickled beets in the middle of his plate, and for good measure, some parsley as a garnish.
Eddie said, “Hey, how come dad gets all the good stuff and we have to eat this”? I have to admit it was a colorful, appetizing-looking dish.
A few minutes later, Ed walked in, looked at the kids plates filled with stew, looked at his colorful plate, smothered his laughter and without cracking a smile, he nonchalantly said, “See, I told you if you used your imagination you could come up with something different”.
“Listen Buster, if even one of our neighbors had some brandy, I told him, “I would have set your plate on fire“! “Very clever, Sweetie, very clever”, he said as he helped himself to the stew.
I heard it on the radio
When Kathy was barely two, I told Ed that there was a talking dog on Art Linkletter’s show that morning. “Yeah, riiight”, he laughed. “No, really, it’s true”.
“Kathy, tell daddy what the doggy said on the radio this morning”, I urged. Fully expecting her to tell him that the doggy said, “Mama” and “Hello”, “I love you” not perfectly, but understandable, Kathy looked at me quizzically. “You remember, I coached, “What did that funny doggy say”? “I member now“, she proudly exclaimed, “The doggy said, “Bow Wow”.
