I walked into the kitchen the other day and found myself standing behind Cool and Gman as they were seated at the island waiting to be fed lunch. They insist on being fed every single day, often multiple times during the same day.
All this child feeding can be very annoying when all one wants to do is sit his fat ass on the couch with his Doritos and watch the ball game, but I’ll digress.
They didn’t hear me walk into the kitchen because I’m quite ninja like that, and also because when they’re together, their noise level is always somewhere equivalent to that of a jet plane repeatedly taking off and immediately crashing into a mountain and exploding upon impact. I believe the decibel number is somewhere around 150, for those of you who need such numerical data to visualize the insanity.
The boys were giggling and having a good time together.
As I snuck behind them, I was pleased to see that they had already gotten what they wanted to be fed from the pantry and refrigerator. That sort of initiative on their part is rare, so it’s to be applauded when they do it.
Before I was able to praise them for their ambitious venture into the pantry and fridge to help get lunch started though, I saw what was so funny to the both of them.
They were licking all the sliced lunch meats and putting them back into the packages.
What?
Right?
You heard me.
THEY WERE LICKING THE GODDAM LUNCHMEAT AND PUTTING IT BACK INTO THE PACKAGES!!!!!
It was apparently the funniest thing in the world to them, until I asked, “What the fuck are you two doing??!!” in the best daddy’s not psychotically enraged, but he’s clearly pissed off tone that I could muster.
Gman continued to giggle while Cool, of course, put his face in his hands and became dejected at having been scolded.
I sighed, walked back into the adjoining room, and proceeded to pound my head on the desk five or six times before I came back and had lunch with my boys.
They enjoyed their licked on salami with mayo and cheese sandwiches while I opted for a lunch-meatless PB&J and a glass of milk.
I sent the boys out the door to terrorize the neighborhood so that I could consider whether or not I needed to try to make myself vomit in peace.
This isn’t the first time daddy has discovered one of the boys returning food to its packaging after it had found its way into a mouth.
A few weeks earlier I was enjoying my Salt and Vinegar flavored sunflower seeds when it occurred to me that some of the seeds lacked flavor and may or may not have seemed a little soggy. (I was going to say moist, but I hate that word. Moist…*shudders*)
Anyway, when I inquired as to whether or not anyone had touched daddy’s seeds, Ace finally looked away from whichever there’s no parent around and the teens are being dicks to each other show that she was watching to let me know that “yes daddy, Gman was sucking the flavor from your seeds earlier and then putting them back in the bag.”
She then smiled at me before turning indifferently back towards her television show.
“Hey honey?” I asked.
“Ace.”
“That fucking tv. I need to remember to cancel cable. These kids are rotting their brains,” I thought.
“ACE!!!!” Jesus Christ, she was sitting seven feet away from me.
“Yeah?”
“Why would you…wait, did you just say yeah?” I asked.
Ace sighs, clearly annoyed at having to pause her stupid show for ten seconds again.
“YES, Dad?”
“That’s sort of better. Why would you let me eat seeds that you know your brother has put into his mouth? Why would you do that to your daddy!??”
Ace shrugged her shoulders and smiled again. “He can’t eat those seeds, Daddy. They’re too hard for him to figure out. He just likes the flavor.”
She has a sweet smile and she’s a sweet kid, so I can’t really be mad at her, even though a small part of me wants to drop kick her ass into the next county for letting me eat sucked on seeds.
That’s just nasty. I’m not a person who enjoys drinking or eating after another person. I find it appalling, in fact.
I have gotten a tiny bit better about it since I’ve had kids. I’ll eat their leftovers when I’m mostly sure they haven’t touched it with their mouths, and I can share a water bottle with them, but there are some things that ain’t happening, and one of those things is me eating anything that has been entirely inside another person’s mouth, fruit of my loins or not.
As Ace returned to her semi-catatonic state to enjoy her show, I sat on the couch and pondered my life.
How many sandwiches have I eaten since these kids have been born that were made with slobbered on lunch meat?
Do they stick their fingers into the peanut butter? Oh God, I bet they lick the knife and put it back into the jar all the time!
Are they licking the salt from my hard pretzels and putting them back into the box? I’ve noticed a bunch of my pretzels haven’t been as salty recently.
Dear God!
My Doritos? Are they licking the dust from my Doritos too?
The thought of it all has me overwhelmed, so I’ve sworn to only eat food at home that I know for a fact is still untarnished. That would basically be nothing, except for whatever I open from an untampered with package.
Failing that, all my meals will be eaten out, in a restaurant, where I can trust that FDA agents and minimum wage earning, salt of the earth human beings are doing their best to ensure that my food is served to me in a clean environment, completely free of child slobber, floaties or other cooties.
