Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

I’m starting to question if I’ve ever had a real piece of chicken.

At dinner tonight, Mom kept shoveling slimy, stinky, slop-like foods onto my plate and encouraged my fork and mouth to cooperate by telling me it tasted “like chicken.” She even took a bite from the swamp on her own plate, and her face looked pleasant enough. I knew she wasn’t faking it, because I heard an “mmm” buzz through her lips. So you can imagine my surprise when my first bite tasted nothing like a McNugget. In fact, it tasted a lot like that pink, fishy thing Nana forced me to eat last week at Papa’s birthday dinner.

Mom seemed upset when I spat out the chunk and made the best disgusted face I could create (something that actually came quite naturally after that bite). When she asked me what was wrong, I tried my best to explain that it tasted nothing like the chicken I’d had before. Maybe it needed some ketchup?

Mom laughed and called me silly. She explained that it was supposed to taste like fancy chicken—something I hadn’t had before. That was why I was unfamiliar with the taste. I glanced at Dad to see if he thought it tasted like this “fancy chicken” too, but was startled by the sound of my own yelp. Mom’s foot had stabbed me right in the shin!

“Sorry, sweetheart! It… slipped. Gary, it tastes like that really nice chicken we had, right?”

Dad’s face looked like it was in a bit of pain, and he reached under the table to touch his leg. I think Mom’s other foot slipped, too, by the looks of it.

“Umm, yeah. It tastes like good chicken, kiddo.”

So I have come up with two theories:

One — Good chicken is, in fact, really horrible and too fancy for my taste.

Two — I’ve never had a real piece of chicken, because this one wasn’t even remotely close to McNuggets. Maybe McNuggets aren’t actually made of chicken?

Whichever it was, I planned never to put another piece in my mouth again. But Mom quickly ruined that idea as she reminded me of the consequences.

“It’s getting really close to Christmas… I would hate for Santa to see this and move you to the Naughty List. You’ve been so good this year!”

She had me. I’d completely forgotten that Santa was watching, taking note of all the bad behavior and adding it up to determine my under-tree haul of the year. Pretty crappy job if you ask me. I know I make his life pretty easy, but I imagine he needs the help of several elves to watch people like Connor. He’s always causing issues for Ms. Gutierrez in class. One day, she even had to call his mom to come pick him up early after he placed a cricket in her coffee.

I feel bad for Connor sometimes, though. It must be tough knowing your mom has a watermelon growing inside of her and will one day have to get a big surgery to remove it. I first noticed it on the day she came to pick him up; her belly was huge! I remember Dad warning me I shouldn’t swallow watermelon seeds at his company picnic that summer, for this exact reason. So when I got home, I had to tell him the news.

“Dad! Connor’s mom is growing a massive watermelon in her stomach! She must have eaten like 10 seeds.”

“What?” He looked extremely shocked, just as I had expected. I’m still not quite sure how she survived after eating that many seeds.

“Yeah, she’s huge! I’m so glad you stopped me before I swallowed them. I do not want that to happen to me.”

“Buddy, uh—that’s actually not what I think is happening to Connor’s mother.”

“Really? That’s what this kid Ben said in our class, too. He said she had sex or something, and it was because of that. Is that true? What’s sex?”

“Oh… oh! Did you mean Connor Oberton? As in his mom is Kelly Oberton? Oh, uhh—yes, right. Yes, I know who you’re talking about. She umm, she did in fact eat a bunch of watermelon seeds.”

Apparently, he saw Connor’s mom at the PTA meeting last week and forgot to tell me. But he reassured me that she would be okay and her surgery would take place in a month or so. Bad timing if you ask me. Connor’s been saying he’s getting a new sister right around then, too! Hopefully they’re not at the hospital when the stork arrives. I’ll try to be extra friendly to him this month, as it sounds like he’s going through a lot.

Dad looked super embarrassed that he had forgotten about Connor’s mom. His underarms got all wet like they did when he told me Miss Bubbles was sleeping. I never understood why he was embarrassed to tell me that. She had been swimming around ever since we got her at the fair, so I can only imagine how tired she was. Plus, the nap seemed to really help her out. When I checked on her the next morning she was double her size! She even changed colors slightly, something Mom had said happens to fish after a good night’s sleep.

Mom’s really smart like that. She knows everything about everything. It probably has something to do with the eyes in the back of her head. I’ve never actually seen them (she has a lot of hair), but she tells me it’s something you grow when you become a parent. I suspect this is how she knows so much; she can see twice as much. It’s super cool and I can’t wait to get my second pair of eyes, but it makes certain things difficult.

For example, how am I supposed to steal Oreo’s from the pantry if I can see the back of her head on the couch from the kitchen? Maybe I can convince her we need a taller couch. I would gladly go to the store with her to pick one out! And maybe the toy shop across the street will actually be open this time. Dad’s always just as frustrated as I am to hear that it’s closed again. I swore I saw someone inside the last time we drove by, but Dad said they were construction workers. Apparently the shop closes right around three every day for maintenance. Just my luck, as that’s when we usually drive by it on our way home from school.

But with Mom’s extra set of eyes and Santa’s constant lookout I’m not worried about my toy haul this year. I have been on my absolute best behavior. I just have to get better at liking the flavor of fancy chicken if I want to stay in good terms with the bearded man.