The moment we sit down to a meal at our house, the older Secret drains his drink. Without hesitation. It just disappears in a single extended gulping session, and the whole thing bothers me for some reason.
Toney can’t understand my irritation, and we sometimes have low-grade arguments about it. “Why do you care?” she asks. “Because it’s ridiculous,” I say.
I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose, or trying to be wacky, I believe it’s just a habit. And I often say, “You know, you can drink water throughout the day. You don’t have to wait until mealtime.” And everybody gets irritated with me.
He does it in restaurants, too. The waitress brings our drinks, and his glass has nothing but ice cubes in it before I’ve had a chance to get the wrapper off my straw. Then I roll my eyes, Toney rolls her eyes at me rolling my eyes, and the Secret mutters, “Sorry,” in the exasperated tone of a teenager.
It’s an ongoing issue: not a huge deal, but something that succeeds in getting under my skin, and causing sporadic tension inside Chez Kay.
Of course, I do something along the same lines – and get kinda pissed when someone makes a comment about it. So yeah, I’m a hypocrite. What of it?
At the end of my meals, you see, I almost always leave one bite on my plate. Everything is cleaned and shiny, except for one remaining forkful of food.
“Why don’t you eat that?” Toney says.
“I’ve hit the wall,” I answer.
“It’s one bite. What are you, Mr. Creosote?”
“I don’t want it.”
So it gets scraped into the garbage disposal, right behind a huge sigh of irritation. But I don’t do it on purpose, I swear I don’t. In fact, I’ve left one bite my entire life.
I remember when I was a kid my grandmother had a BIG problem with it. She grew up during the depression, and all that stuff, and it pained her to throw away food. I think she would sometimes wrap a single pinto bean in Saran Wrap, to heat up later. But I could be a little off on that memory…
In any case, my granny and I would go round and round about that last bite. But I couldn’t eat it, the thought of it made me sick — only the final bite. Wonder what a psychiatrist would say about that? Any of you care to guess?
And do you, or anyone you know, have a weird lifelong food habit you’d care to report? Are you aware of anyone else who eats his meal right up to the last bite, and can’t go any further? Like, every single time? Use the comments section below.
And this is a catch-up (not ketchup) update, since I couldn’t get it done on Monday. I’ll try to post something late in the afternoon on Tuesday, as well. I’m going to be out of town on Thursday/Friday, so it’s already going to be a short week here…
More to come…
O.K. Confession time! Gotta be fries first then burger! gotta have Hellmans real Mayonaise with the Fries! My Mom’s French so have been drinking wine with dinner since I was 10 (they water it down until you are 15) now food tastes like crap without a glass! But worst of all as a grown man slightly older than God! Sunday Roast beef dinner all thats left on the finished plate: a mix of horseradish sauce juice from the meat & congealed gravy Gotta lick that plate!!!!!
I too drain my drinks almost instantly. It never caused any problems at home, but waitresses get a little peeved when they deliver a round of drinks to our table an mine is empty before she’s set the last one down.
I also eat fast, which is a habit I picked up in the Army Reserves. During basic you had 15 minutes to eat from the moment you entered the mess hall. When I’m out it’s not a problem, but at home in a relaxed setting and the food is gone in an instant.
That last bite of food actually has a name. It is called an ort (http://www.answers.com/topic/ort)…file it away for future crosswords.
WTF? Lemme try this again…
Ort: A small scrap or leaving of food after a meal is completed
http://www.answers.com/topic/ort
And….file that away for a future crossword answer…it actually came up in a NYT crossword!
I’ve gotten over the foods not touching (although still dont like sweets and savories to touch, not even the cranberry sauce at thanksgiving). I’ve also gotten over eating my foods one at a time…but FRIES will always have to come FIRST. I think it’s just cuz they have to be as hot as possible.
Growing up I was not allowed to sing at the table…too disrespectful. But God likes singing, I thought…so WTF? Today I sing wherever and whenever I want…but I still feel guilty doing so around family at mealtime.
Jeff my man, my 9 year old boy secret does the same thing with the last bite, and the drink thing. He has always hung onto some portion of food. Even when he was a toddler he would keep a handful of whatever he was eating in his off hand, and clean his plate while keeping that bit off to itself and when he was done he’d leave that reserved bit and to this day he leaves something at every meal. The drink thing is different though. Boys are so busy I think they forget to drink throughout the day and they don’t get many drink breaks at school, so he’s probably parched come dinner especially during school, at least I think that’s what’s going on with my boy.
KYDave… every time I see you post something I feel like a bad girl…I can’t help it. LOL!
@Greg What the hell is “RUB” in your mouth. I’m assuming some sort of smokeless tobbacco, like dip or chaw. But my mind did so much more with “rub in his mouth” that I had to stop and ask!!!
@Angie I hate straws as well. My kids all fight over the extra straw. Straws are for the invalid and the handless.
Straws keep my lips off a glass that might not be as clean as I’d like. Germ issues here.
I eat FAST. Always have. My dad used to say “no one is going to take that away from you”. But I can’t help it.
Happy Tuesday, Surfers!
Green Day tonight…
I’m new to the surf report. Jeff, you are hilarious!! I can’t understand the ‘no foods touching on the plate’ thing, but I am guilty of eating one thing before moving on to the next. my dad use to call it “baby-ish” of me to do that. I’ve since learned that most of europeans eat that way…so there, dad! I’m also a BIG milk drinker. I learned that more people in the world drink goats milk than cows milk.
I also leave a bite at the end..in my head it is just old, and not good enough to eat. I don’t like the “bottom” of my pickle. Bottom of OJ container is super nast.
I have to have milk in a glass glass, otherwise it gets warm too fast. My hubby puts a cube in his milk which is gross as it melts. Leftovers are garbage after 24 hours..I have a tricky stomach and I don’t try to introduce too much bacteria.
thats it for today!!
Chompers. Can’t stand ’em. People who chew with their mouth open. I used to have to leave the room because of it. There’s something extremely retarded about people who can’t close their mouth when they eat and it makes me want to slap them! I don’t have to leave the room these days but I still have to grit my teeth to tolerate it. And put some music on to dull the effects.
@Dawn I cannot believe it has a name! NORT
http://www.answers.com/topic/ort
.. unfortch, I couldn’t find it in any other dictionary.
CX…tis true! Here is Merriam Webster:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ort
Wait, are you gonna bust out a “made ya look”?!
last bite is a unfortunate proposition sometimes. especially when condiments are in play. by the way, if you don’t let your food touch, do you eat cheeseburgers, subs, sushi, shepherds pie, apple pie… you get the idea. what am i missing here?
i was raised to clean my plate. any physician will tell you that is a messed up way to eat. people worked a lot harder in great depression days. they weren’t filling their face at Quik Trip and hopping in their Eddie Bauer Explorer to only get home flop on the couch and play Madden.
– My food neurosis, only recently having appeared: I cannot *stand* the smell of food that I will not be eating. Go figure.
Todays quote(s)…
Eins – “The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you’re hungry again.” George Miller
Zwei – “I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.” (unk)
Drei – “Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?” (unk)
On the hunt tomorrow for those fantastic Pennsylvania peaches – to make my annual enormous peach pie.
Bon apetit, boys & girls!
@KYDave: Yea, a “rub” is a small portion of Copenhagen, Skoal, or any of those smokeless tobaccos you put in your mouth. The term could be local to my area. Lots of people call it a “rub”. Makes no sense. The gross part is the spit cup which the user must carry around with him, if he’s indoors. My roommate used only red plastic disposable picnic-type cups. That way, everybody knew to leave those cups alone.
I studied in Spain with a host family one Summer. I drank a lot of water with my meals, and my house mother warned me that it would make fat. Maybe I translated improperly, this is some old Spanish wives tale, or this was just her way of calling me fat. Either way I called BS on her in broken Spanish.
I don’t think I have any real food quirks … unless you count getting creeped out when your fellow diners bite their fork. Even the phrase “bite the fork” gives me the d-chills.
Sometimes I leave two or three bites on the plate. I eat until I’m full. Silly me. My parents were not of the clean your plate school. And, they didn’t make me eat things I didn’t like. OMG, it messed me up so bad. Hahahahahaha.
My husband absolutely cannot take the final drink of anything. Beer, iced tea, soda- whatever it is, he leaves the final swig. Makes me mental.
Here’s mine:
Sandwiches are sliced parallel to the edges, to make two rectangles; absolutely no diagonals; triangular sandwiches will scrape the roof of your mouth.
KYDave- where I grew up (rural northern WV) everyone called it “rubbing snuff.” So whenever I see someone with a big wad of snuff under their bottom lip I say they have a big rub in.
I NEVER heard the term “dipping” until later in my highschool years when we started getting the ol’ tobacky edumacation.
And yeah, the spit bottles/cups are nasty. I’ve heard more than my share of stories of somebody picking up a bottle that they thought had some coke left in it and it was snuff spit. God that just makes me shudder.
Anyway as far as weird food habits go…well, I have a hard time identifying my own but I’m sure others could tell you! I do like to put mayonnaise on all kinds of things…hamburgers, hot dogs, corn dogs, it just tastes so good on them.
One thing I know may be a bit weird is that I have a VERY hard time drinking a beverage out of a cup that has been sitting out for some time. I think this habit developed when I was younger…I picked up a cup that had been sitting out for an hour or two with some tea in it and happened to look at it and I could see all the dust and crap floating on the surface. Ever since then, if a cup sits out unattended for more than a half hour, I have a strong tendency to dump it out and refill it.
I’m also a “don’t have different foods touching” type (I even tend to disassemble pizza while eating it, but have no problem with sandwiches and such), and an “eat all of one item, then move to next” type. I tend to sort M&Ms, Gummi Bears, and such by color, eat all of one color, then go to the next.
Must have a beverage while eating (I tend to use straws a lot in public, since that allows me to leave the glass sitting on the table and cuts down the spillage. Yes, I’m a klutz). I also do the “consume liquid part of soup, then eat solids” thing someone mentioned.