Shell Game

Shell Game

Don't you think it's rather unnice when parents do a shell game with their kids? My parents used to do it with me all the time when I was in grade school...

"If you can pick the shell with the pea under it, you can go to the fair. If not, you have to dig the potatoes in the back 40 and haul them in to Mr. Peterson."*

Mr. Peterson, of course, was our landowner to whom we had to pay tithes. They weren't really tithes, of course, because Mr. Peterson wasn't a religious organization, but boy did he love his potatoes. I asked my dad once why Mr. Peterson referred to his rent as tithes,

"Because, boy does he love his potatoes."

You know, I had tithes and potatoes so intermingled in my brain that for the first few years of ordering food for myself at restaurants I would always say,

"I would like the cheese burger with a side of Freedom Tithes."

Talk about embarrassing! That's why I was on the cutting edge of ordering a side salad before ordering a side salad was cool. Had nothing to do with watching my health - please, I was in Junior High! - it had everything to do with not wanting to embarrass myself by saying the wrong thing. Ended up, I would always just embarrass myself for being a Junior High kid who ordered a side salad. Stupid Mr. Peterson.

*Is it 'in to' or 'into'? Would one of them mean inside of Mr. Peterson? Stupid English language. I've always said all that money the government spent on trying to get us to convert to the metric system in the '70s woulda been much better spent on trying to get us to switch to a more succinct language! I vote for Sanskrit.