by Susan Berran
So Mom and Dad end up arguing before we even get to the restaurant. Which, Mom reckons, is all Dad’s fault!
I don’t know how Dad does it really. But whenever it’s his turn to arrange somewhere to go for dinner . . . he somehow manages to totally mess it up, every single time!
About a week ago, he came home all excited and happy because Mom’s birthday was coming up and he reckoned a friend had told him about the perfect place to take her for her birthday dinner. Yep, Dad figured that this was supposed to make up for all those times that he’d completely messed up by forgetting Mom’s birthday, anniversary, and other stuff altogether!
You see, Mom and Dad decided ages ago that on special occasions, like their birthdays, it would be really nice for the whole family to go out together for dinner. And the choice of where to go was totally up to Dad this time because it was Mom’s special night. He chose for her and Mom would choose for Dad. That way it was always supposed to be a “lovely big surprise.” Yeah right, I reckon it would be a big surprise if we actually went somewhere with normal food that we all might like to eat, just for once.
But it seemed that every single time we were going out for dinner, Dad would always choose some weird little place that served food from a country on the other side of the world that no one’s ever heard of, that no one can pronounce or spell, and that slops up stuff that no one can possibly eat because it’s so disgustingly fresh and healthy that it tastes like total crap!
Yeah, let’s all go out and eat a huge yummy plate of leaves or stuff out of the ground . . . vegetables! Yyyuk! Everyone knows that all of that healthy stuff is just too gross for words.
And then Mom and Dad try to look all snobby and smart by asking the waitress to explain to me and my little brother what something on the menu is, when they’re actually asking for themselves because they have absolutely no idea what it is, but they just don’t want to look totally dumb.
Me and my little brother didn’t really care what the stuff was and we didn’t want to know either, that just made everything sound even grosser. We just wanted to eat dessert and go home!
We knew that the food in all of these places was always something really fancy shmancy like . . . “baked camel toenails” or “zebra bladder soup.” Why couldn’t we just go to McDonald’s or some chicken place where there was real food? But nooo . . . Mom reckons that there’s absolutely no difference between the garbage that they throw in the trash and the garbage they serve up inside.
But it was Dad’s choice of where to go this time. So Mom reckons we all better “enjoy the night or we’d be getting a smack around the earhole” as Mom so nicely put it. Yeah, that sounded fair . . . not!
So there we were, an hour later, still wandering around in the middle of the city. Roaming the streets looking for some weird place that, no matter how we spelled it, didn’t seem to appear on any of our maps. Great, it was getting darker and darker really fast and we were still asking anyone and everyone if they’d ever heard of the place that we were looking for. Which of course no one had.
Mom was very quickly getting more and more peeved and kept asking Dad every five minutes if he was sure that he had the name of the place right and did he really look up the proper address or was he just guessing because he “sort of” knew where it was?
It was a great start to the night . . . Mom was already getting really cranky with Dad because we couldn’t find the place and Dad was getting more and more peeved at Mom for nagging him about not finding the place. And me and Bryan were getting even crankier with both of them because we were absolutely starving and there was no sign of any food yet!
I was so hungry that right about now I would have eaten crap on a plate . . . or crap not on a plate . . . or crap on a plate made of crap, I really didn’t care! And I could tell that Bryan was starving as well, because he had drool dribbling down his chin and splashing to the ground.
It was getting so dark and Mom’s patience had just about run out. Her eyes were now two thin angry slits. She was glaring at Dad with a look that could’ve ripped his head right off his shoulders and bounced it around a basketball court! And if we didn’t get to our dinner reservation soon Dad was probably going to be our dinner. We could almost see the smoke pouring out of Mom’s ears . . . her head was ready to burst into a bazillion bits and send gooey brain flying all over the place any second now.
I’d lost track of time, but it seemed like hours and I could almost hear our stomachs crying out in total agony as they slowly shriveled and shrank.
Dad was getting more and more desperate as he zipped up and down every tiny little alleyway. But each time returning with a look of increased fear across his face.
“That’s it!” Mom finally snapped. “Where are we going!?”
Dad did not look well, and I thought he was going to faint on the spot. “‘The Suckling Duckling’,” he said with a nervous quiver in his voice. “It’s French and was supposed to be right beside the ‘Putrid Pelican’ by the lake.”
“Right . . .” Mom shoved back in, “the kids are starving to death, I’m starving to death! The next place we come to with something, anything at all to eat . . . we eat! Got it!?”
“Yes dear,” Dad conceded with his head hanging low as if it was about to be chopped off . . . which it definitely was.
In about two seconds flat, Mom had spotted the “Puddle of Possum.” So with Dad quietly trailing along behind us we made a beeline straight for it. We zipped there faster than Superman on laxatives. We were so hungry and flew straight through the front opening!
“Stop!” yelled the head waiter. “Do you have reservations?”
“No we do not have a reservation!” Mom said tightly, trying extremely hard to stay calm. Even though I could see the veins in her neck throbbing as if her head was about to explode like a bucket of bombs in a bomb factory made of bombs.
“No reservation, no entry!” the head waiter boomed in her face.
This was gonna be great. Any second now, Mom was gonna fly at this guy like a freight train full of bricks . . . she was gonna pound him like a hammer on a marshmallow . . . she was gonna . . . hey, we were leaving? Why wasn’t Mom pounding him into dust, why wasn’t she removing the legs and arms from his body? But as I looked around I quickly saw why Mom had kept her cool . . . the waiter wasn’t being nasty after all. The place was absolutely packed solid! There wasn’t a single spot not taken. We had no choice but to move on.
“I’m hungry, Mom,” Bryan started to whine. “We’re all hungry, sweetie,” Mom said sneering across at Dad yet again.
“Hey!” Dad suddenly burst out. “What about the ‘Spotted Dalmation’? One of the guys at work told me about it last week. It’s supposed to be absolutely fantastic,” he said hopefully. “It’s just around the corner.”
We all took off again as fast as we could possibly go. My stomach immediately started to get excited . . . food . . . finally food! We shot around the very next corner and there it wa. . . Where was it? Nooooo! It was gone!
“It was here a week ago,” Dad whispered, sounding like he was about to cry. But now it was gone, totally and utterly, completely gone. It was as if the whole thing had just been picked up and taken away completely.
Mom’s eyes almost seemed to have magically turned into lazer beams, because they were cutting through Dad like a razor blade. “Follow me!” Mom shrieked. “We’re going to the ‘Fluffy Pigeon’! It opened on the Space Needler this afternoon,” Mom said, trying to force a smile.
“But that’s supposed to be the most expensive place in . . .” Dad started.
“What!” Mom cut in.
“That’ll be lovely, dear,” Dad said, quickly shrinking behind us.
We headed straight for the Needle. This had to be the poshest place in the whole entire city. All the snobs would be there. Our day definitely just got a whole lot better.
This was going to be awesome. Of course all the way there Mom kept reminding me and Bryan how to use our manners.
“Don’t slurp. Don’t drool. Don’t scream. Don’t blah blah blah blah!!” But I didn’t really hear much of anything that Mom said. I was so starving that my brain was drying up.
We finally reached the tower. But naturally our luck . . . bad luck . . . was still with us. The elevator wasn’t working. I turned to Mom expecting her to be heading back out into the street but nope, she was heading for the stairwell, of course. Ok, only ninety-eight flights of stairs, this was going to be a snap . . . not! Was she bonkers!? We were already weak from hunger, but Mom pushed on. Leading the way, floor after floor after floor after floor after floor . . . well you get the idea. And when Bryan got too tired to go any further . . . did we turn back? No! Mom just gave Dad one of those mind-reading stares that she gives . . . and Dad carried Bryan the rest of the way.
By the time we got to the rooftop I thought Dad was going to take one last breath and die, he couldn’t speak and barely had the strength to take another breath.
But then it hit us . . . the smell of perfectly plump pigeons. My mouth drooled instantly and all of those “manners” that Mom had mentioned went straight out of my head. I wanted to dive right into a juicy, fat pigeon. I wanted to eat, now! We looked around searching for a space when there it was . . . a beam of moonlight seemed to be pointing the way to our dream feed. We headed straight for . . . “Stop! Name please?” a rather snobby looking waiter asked. “Ah, why?” Mom asked back rather annoyed and still panting heavily from the trip up. “Because this is a private function.”
“Um . . . well ours is the name on the list that’s not crossed off yet because we just got here,” Dad said, looking pretty pleased with himself. Actually that was pretty clever. “Uh huh?” said the waiter looking us up and down. “What a shame everyone is here . . . otherwise that might have worked,” he said, spinning around and heading back to the crowd. Mom glared across at Dad once again “Well he said it would have worked,” Dad stammered, quickly shrinking away again.
“We’re going home!” Mom suddenly announced. But now it wasn’t her angry voice any more. We were all exhausted and starving and I just wanted to get home to bed, food or no food. I really didn’t care anymore.
We slowly headed back down and right on through the heart of the city, except now we seemed to be passing food places everywhere . . . the “Furless Feline,” the “Stuffed Goose,” they were everwhere. But every one of them had a sign up . . . “private function” . . . “no tie no entry”. . . “no kids night” . . . “full.” It was Mom’s worst birthday dinner ever! Dad was going to get heaps for this mess up. He was going to be in Mom’s “bad books” forever.
Bryan was almost asleep on Dad’s back and I was wobbling about from hunger as we came to the edge of the city. We made our way down onto the beach and along the waterfront. The moonlight glinted off the water as the waves crashed into the sand. We were only minutes from home and each one of us was miserable . . . but especially Mom.
As soon as we got home I was going to pig out on as much junk as I could find. I was going to . . . to . . . “Hey Mom, what’s that?” I said looking a little further along the water’s edge. I wasn’t quite sure if my tired, blurry eyes were playing tricks on me or what.
“Woo whoo!” Dad yelled, waking Bryan immediately. Mom’s frown instantly flipped upside-down, transforming into a humongous grin as we all took off with renewed strength. We flew flat-out towards the wonderful miracle before us.
It took us about three seconds flat to reach it and there was absolutely no one else there . . . not one single, solitary other being. It wasn’t closed, it hadn’t run out of food, it wasn’t only open for some snotty-nosed, prissy private function, and it didn’t disappear . . . it was real! And we were positively, absolutely, the very first ones to get there.
Suddenly out popped the head waiter . . . “Welcome to the ‘Beached Whale’,” he said happily. “You’re our very first customers.”
“You’ve only just opened?” Dad spluttered out.
“Yep. The whale only beached five minutes ago. It’s from the Arctic Ocean,” the waiter continued. “Now where can I seat you? You look hungry. The eyeball is still moist, or perhaps you’d like the spilling-out guts and intestines where a shark has taken a few chunks? . . . Maybe the bowels? They’ve just finished freshly overflowing.”
“I want bladder,” Bryan yelled, now wide awake. “No, let’s go straight to the butt,” I tried to persuade them, “there’s fresh poop!”
“I think your Mom should decide. After all, it is her birthday,” said Dad obviously in a last ditch effort to suck up.
“I think we’ll start with the tongue and move on to fresh poop for dessert,” Mom declared happily.
“Certainly . . . this way,” replied the waiter as we took off into the air once more and followed him to our spot. We landed just inside the whale’s putrid, foul-smelling mouth. It strangely smelled absolutely wonderful!
“This is the best birthday dinner ever,” Mom declared as we all barfed onto the gigantic tongue and began sucking up the flesh through our “mouth straws” as the dead whale meat began to quickly rot.
The smell, the taste . . . everything was absolutely amazing!
Within seconds we could hear and see hundreds, no, thousands of other blow flies turning up at the entrance. But there was no way we were moving! No one was getting our spot . . . at least not until we were totally stuffed.
Ok first, for those that don’t know what “toe-jam” is . . . you know when you play football or sports or you’ve been mucking around outside wearing flip-flops or sandals and you get all sweaty and filthy and these big gross balls of sock fluff and dirt and stuff get stuck between your toes and you haven’t washed between them for weeks, so it’s totally smelly and disgusting in there . . . that’s toe-jam! Okey dokey?!
Hmmm, so this is a tough question. Can I put toe-jam on my toast . . . yes. But why would I want to?!
Can you put toe-jam on someone else’s toast . . . yes. And why wouldn’t you want to?!
My best friend Jared and I spend heaps of time inventing all of this really awesome stuff. We reckon we’re going to start our own business making stuff as soon as we leave school. We’re going to be sooo totally rich!
Of course, whenever you invent something you have to test it out to make sure that it works . . . then test it a second time to be sure that it works . . . and a third time because, well then it’s just fun.
We were in Health Class at school last week when the teacher started droning on and on about how in the future there wouldn’t be enough food and blah blah blah and how anyone who comes up with new food gets rich overnight because the big companies buy the idea straight away . . . ding ding ding ding!
Rich . . . overnight! Jared looked at me, I looked at him. We were both thinking the same thing . . . toe-jam!
Back in our secret hide-out at Jared’s place we’d been collecting toe-jam for ages. We wanted to see if we could grow a new arm or leg or nose or anything else from it. You know, like starfish. If a crab or anything else starts chomping on their legs, the starfish just lets their leg “drop off” so they can run away and grow another one. Even if all their legs are gone, they’re totally awesome!
We’d collected toe-jam from every single guy at school while we were away on a school camping trip for a few days. Every night we waited until everyone else was asleep, then crept around to the bunks, pulled back the bottom corner of the sheets, and veeery gently used our finger nails to scrape the disgusting toe-jam from between the toes of each guy. Then we used my little sister’s toothbrush to dig the gross, growing fungus out from under our finger nails and chucked each bit into a different jar for each kid. But we didn’t stop there . . . nope. We got the toe-jam of my snotty little sister’s dog, Fluff Butt, and from Jared’s pet guinea pigs, Ying and Yang. We got the toe-jam of one of the other kid’s pet pigeons, a hamster, a poodle, a cockatoo, and heaps of other animals as well.
The cockatoo was tricky. He’s like this ninja
, nasty, crazy attacking bird. He attacks anyone that tries to touch his cage. So of course I got Jared to place his hand on the outside of the cage. Then while the dumb bird was biting and nipping and generally just attacking the crap out of Jared’s fingers, I used an popsicle stick to scrape out some toe-jam from between his claws. Man, Jared had chunks taken out of his hand. There was blood all over the place. He probably should have worn gloves; I did. And I would have lent them to him but my hands were cold.
Anyway, we’d been growing the toe-jam for months now and there wasn’t a sign of any legs or arms or ears or even a single wart growing! Every single jar was just massively packed full of greeny-greyish, really fine, disgusting, gross mold growing like crazy. So the moment the teacher talked about “growing a new food” Jared and I instantly knew . . . our toe-jam.
It was perfect! It cost nothing to grow, it’s easy to start your own, and it didn’t use water at all because the moisture in the toe-jam made the jar sweat which made the mold grow. It didn’t take up much room and it was available all over the world! Best of all, it’s totally all-natural. Being a mixture of the environment, dirt, sweat, and your own body fluids . . . hey, you can’t get more natural than that.
It was brilliant! We were gonna be sooo awesomely rich!
Sure we didn’t know what it tasted like yet. Sure it looked incredibly gross. And sure we were pretty darn certain that it would taste totally and utterly like absolute crap! But who cares . . . that’s what loads of sugar and coloring are for!
But then the teacher started going on about how the companies wouldn’t buy any idea without some sort of proof that the idea was going to work.
