Pickiness and Potatoes

Were you a picky eater when you were a kid?  I was.  Fortunately the pickiness always fleshed itself out in easy to manageable ways.  For instance, when I wanted a sandwich, I wanted bread with mayonnaise and the cheap sliced turkey.  That's it.  If I was really feeling adventurous I might want lettuce.  If you had mayo and turkey, I could live for days.  Sometimes, though, my pickiness had dire consequences.  Let me tell you about mashed potatoes.

Let me say this first off: I like mashed potatoes (now.)  After many years, I grew to like the buttery texture and absorbant flavor, and have realized that my Mom really does make great mashed potatoes.  This was not always the case.  Certainly my Mom always made great mashed potatoes, but I didn't know.  When I was young, all I knew was that mashed potatoes were gross as all heck.  The texture was creepy and the flavor was sickening.  I knew I wanted no part of them.  I was probably five or six years old one day when Mom made the fateful mistake of forcing me to eat them.

It was a family dinner like many others.  The six of us were huddled around the table, and in front of me was a full plate of food, including a heaping helping of potatoes.  I told Mom, quite abruptly, that no mashed potatoes would be eaten that night.  If anyone else wanted to have their fill of the abomination, by all means, I won't stop them.  I, though, refused to eat such filth.  Mom, being the ever wise one, told me I had to eat the potatoes.  I get it now; she just wanted me to get over my irrational fear of potatoes and eat them because they tasted good and were healthy.  Nope.  I refused to cave.  She insisted.

You ever try to go toe to toe in logic with a child?  You know that at any time the child could cave in and do something so unthinkable that it throws the argument out the window.  I had to do that; I resorted to threats.  "Mom, if you make me eat those potatoes, I will throw up."  I meant it, too.  Mom wasn't having any of it.  I reinstated my claim.  "Mom, if you make me eat those potatoes, I will throw up."  I was told, once again, to eat the potatoes.  I was told I'd like them, and I saw my whole family enjoying them.  I had to teach them a lesson.

You probably have two outcomes swirling in your head right now: one where I cave in and enjoy them, and one where I eat them and return them from whence they came.  This, unfortunately, is a story of the latter.  I did eat those potatoes, and I returned them back towards the center of the table in the fastest way possible.  It was a revolting sight.  Nonetheless, Mom insisted on this dance again.  We debated the merits of the potatoes, and I once again consumed/unconsumed them.  From that day on, Mom never forced me to eat anything.

It took me until mid way through High School to enjoy a potato that wasn't French Fried.  I stayed picky, and enjoyed mayonnaise and turkey sandwiches.  Heck, I'll probably eat one of those this afternoon.  The point here is that when you try to match logic with a child incapable of reason, you'll probably get burned.  Mom knew that she had to pick her battles with her kids, and I guess that day she realized that with a possible outcome like that, foods were no longer a worthy battle to fight.