What's In Your Mouth?
I ’ve heard people remark that small children are smarter than they seem. As the father of a 10-month-old, all I can say is “I certainly hope so.”
We love our child dearly, but—how can I put this?—I’m not seeing any pressing need to set up an education fund. For one thing, he seems unable to tell the difference between real food and objects that have no nutritional value.
He has made serious efforts to eat a 749-page copy of Les Miserables, a throw rug, an aluminium chair, and a $20 traveller’s cheque. Given the choice between eating the latest copy of National Geographic and a Heinz baby-food product that is the exact same shade of yellow, he will choose the National Geographic every time.
it just fits!
They say that toddlers grow out of this stage, but don’t bet on it. My friend Melynie has a four-year-old daughter whom I shall call “Sally” in order to avoid any unpleasantness when she is old enough to hire a lawyer. On a trip to the beach this past summer, Melynie and Sally discovered a shop that offered “free” hermit crabs.
Back home, Sally wants to get to know her pet better, so she tries putting the sea shell in her mouth. It just fits.
Then she sticks her tongue into the open end of the shell. The hermit crab does not recognise this as a gesture of friendship and grabs Sally’s tongue with its big claw. Pandemonium ensues. Sally starts calling for her mother, though her enunciation is severely hampered.
MRAUGH! HHHMM! NNNAAGH!
After several seconds of confusion, Melynie looks into her daughter’s mouth and finds the two-inch crab shell.
Her first reaction is “Where’s the video camera?” But she quickly realises that Sally would not appreciate a delay for any purpose—even if the broadcast rights on Funniest Home Videos could put the girl through uni. So Melynie instructs Sally to dangle her tongue (with the attached shell) under a water faucet until the crab releases its hold.
Like any good mother, Melynie blames herself: “It never occurred to me to warn my children not to stick their tongues into hermit crab shells,” she opines.
I know it’s not fair to make fun of what kids put in their mouths, especially when even adults can be careless in this area. (I myself had a bit of potluck casserole in 1985 that haunts me to this day.)
octopus or okra?
When the other evening I was looking at a menu that listed “grilled baby octopus,” I wanted to find someone who ordered this particular appetiser, look into their eyes, and ask them, “Why?”
Perhaps there are people with nothing else to eat. But Australian stores—and New Zealand too, I presume—feature at least 50 different kinds of spaghetti sauce. Our situation isn’t so desperate that we have to eat slimy, bottom-dwelling invertebrates. Besides, I’m sure you can get the same taste from boiled okra.*
Now would be a good time to make some pronouncements about the importance of eating right. But I won’t. First of all, I would have no credibility, because my own son would be delighted to eat an octopus if it ever came within reach. And second of all, Jesus said it isn’t what we put in our mouth that makes us unclean; it’s what comes out.
He’s right, of course. Whatever the health disadvantage of eating a fatty bacon double cheeseburger, there’s more to regret from speaking hurtful words to a friend or family member. Those are the times that it would be better if, just for a little while, a crab got our tongue.
* Okra is a tall plant of the mallow family used in soups and stews.
Reprinted, with permission, from Women of Spirit.
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