Peas

My brother Jack hates peas and pumpkin.  Why he hates pumpkin, I do not know but he hates peas more.  Maybe the reason for this aversion is that my mother used to cook them until they were a grey soggy mess.  No-one in my family liked them much but my brother hated them.  Despite the fact that none of her children loved peas, we used to see them on our dinner plate with some regularity and they would always be attended by drama and tears.  Perhaps my mother secretly loved drama and tears.  Perhaps she thought that every meal was attended by drama and tears, so bring it on!

Jack's usual response to seeing peas on his plate was to throw a tantrum and refuse to eat them.  This made for a wonderful atmosphere at the dinner table.  There would be cajoling and yelling and forcing.  Both parents would end up being involved.  The rest of us would slowly and quietly eat our dinner hoping not to get caught up in any escalation.  My sister who hated peas just as much as Jack practiced swallowing the peas whole so that she didn't need to bite into the squishy mess of pea.  By the time she left school, she could swallow whole forkfuls.

One day my Jack tried a different tack.  He decided that he would take his peas to the bathroom and flush them down the toilet.  The trouble was transporting them there.  There were too many for his hands to carry and my mother may notice his tiny fists with grey green mush oozing between his fingers.  He had no pockets.  His shorts were loose and would not hold anything.  He put them in his underpants and went to the toilet.

My mother perhaps alerted by the lack of drama and tears at the dinner table so far came to inspect his plate and immediately noticed the absence of peas.  This was unusual, as Jack always left the things he hated until last as he hoped to get away with not eating them.  My mother began to suspect a ruse.  She checked the bin and looking down noticed a Hansel and Gretel like trail of peas leading up to the bathroom.  She rushed after my brother and burst into the toilet which was unlocked (brothers!)  and caught him with his pants around his knees, scooping peas out of his underwear.   Those little blighters were slippery.

My mother screamed.  Jack's pants were removed.  There may have been some smacking.  The peas were gathered up, including all those that had dropped on the ground between the kitchen and the bathroom and were dumped back on Jack's plate.  The pants were put back onto Jack's bottom and he was made to sit back down at the table.  He would not be getting up until everything on that plate was eaten.

"But the peas have been in his undies!"  we cried.

Well he had put them there and he could live with the consequences of that action.

"Gross!" we cried, though there may have been some snickering.

So he sat and ate his meal including every last pea and he was never allowed to go the the toilet during a meal again.