You’ll live! Sheesh…

“You Won’t be Poisoned”

This was a standard comment from my mother when we asked what was happening for dinner. “offer it up” was another regular response when any questions were posed about meals, but I’ll leave that for another time. The conversation went like this:

• Kid: What’s for dinner?
• Mom: Food, some of which you have had before and I know you can tolerate it because I have seen you eat it with my own eyes.. Yes, I have. Don’t look at me like that.
• Kid: Uh, really? I was hoping for a different meal, all of which I have decided ten minutes before dinnertime.
• Mom: Well, that wasn’t on the menu. (gesturing to the menu we had with daily dinners listed. Anyone was welcome to go ahead and cross off what was listed and make whatever dinner they wanted for the family. Yeah, that didn’t happen very often)
• Kid: Well, I’m not sure…
• Mom: You won’t be poisoned.
• Kid: *shrug* OK.

“You won’t be poisoned”. I sometimes wonder what she meant by this, aside from the obvious assurance that the grim reaper was not going to visit us at the dinner table no matter how dark our teenage minds were.

Part of me thinks she was saying, “Good grief, what do you kids expect? Eat it! You’ll be fine! It might not be exactly what you were looking for, but for goodness’ sake, I can’t hit it out of the park every evening. And besides, I’m not going to kill you with this.”

Exasperation? Resignation? Exhaustion? Little of each? Not really sure. She always said it in a kind way – rarely angry, usually just outraged or, more likely, impatient and by 6PM on a rainy Thursday, rather done with the kids.

Or it’s possible she was saying, “Trust me. I know what I’m doing here. I wouldn’t put you kids in danger. You’re the most precious thing in my life.”

Nah. Option “A’ for sure.