Ok, in all fairness to my dad, Homer, I'll share with you some of my weird eating habits when I was a kid. I can make fun of myself too, and I love grossing people out and laughing when I tell these stories!
My childhood summers were spent at the local Country Club swimming pool. Not much of a club, it mostly consisted of fat women, screaming children, greasy fries and a v-e-r-y warm kiddy pool. It was back when I was still confident enough to wear a bikini, even though I didn't have much to hold up the top. When I wanted to escape the hot sun, we'd retreat to the ice skating rink. In the summer it had ping-pong tables, shuffleboard, and the snackbar. We'd go there, to its cool, almost cold darkness, and watch the boys. And eat. My favorite summer snack - cheese curls and ketchup. I loved their spicy flavor. Seeing those neon golden curls in vending machines today remind me of those excellent summers. Before having breasts mattered, before sunbathing caused cancer.
I got a chocolate orange for Christmas one time. Opening the foil, it fell into sections just like a real orange has. How cool! It was orange-flavored chocolate, really, not a choco-covered orange. But I thought, what the heck? If this tastes so good, how about - orange juice with chocolate syrup? When I stirred it up it turned to this really ugly brown color - I'll spare you the description - but I drank it anyway. Not one of my better creations, but I made it, I took the plunge. I didn't re-create THAT little experiment ever again!
One summer we went to visit my mom's mother and my uncle. My uncle's roommate's father had a farm, and we'd go to visit. I'd milk the cows, run through the barns, and pick corn right off the stalk. My mom called me a daredevil back then. At the ripe mature age of six, I decided to spend the night at the farm. Without my family. Alone. After dinner, when it was time to go to bed, I got homesick and weepy, and they had to drive me all the way back to my grandmother's house. What food did I eat for dinner? Chicken gizzards! HEY! I didn't know what they were! I was only six! I didn't know they were gizzards - what the heck was a gizzard, anyway? For months afterwards though, I'd make my mom buy gizzards, fry 'em up, and I'd eat 'em. With ketchup. All alone.
I have never eaten a PB-n-J. Peanutbutter and jelly just doesn't appeal to me. My mom told me she used to eat peanutbutter and banana sandwiches. Nope. Not gonna try that either. But when she described peanutbutter and BACON sandwiches - well, I could try that. Peanutbutter smeared onto soft white bread, then sprinkled with Baaco's Bacon Bits. Awesome! Kinda like crunchy peanutbutter - I couldn't even taste the bacon. But a half an hour later I'd burp, and oops! Bacon!
There is one thing I'd still eat today, given half a chance. In college, I wanted to lose some weight. Being on the Cross-Country team, despite all the calories I burned every day, wasn't enough. So I cut out meat, milk, cheese, fried foods, ice cream, excess sugar and coffee. No butter, margerine, peanutbutter (they didn't have Baaco's anyway), and most breads. I ate more fruits, vegetables, and pastas. It was hard - the food at my college was really awesome. Other freshmen would gain 10 pounds in college - here they'd gain 20. But, I had the problem of what to put on my cereal besides milk. When I was a kid I was content to eat my Coco-Pebbles sans milk, but it wasn't a very appealing way to eat cereal now. (Besides, do you know how hard it is to eat dry cereal? And boy-oh-boy! Don't think of sneezing with a mouth full 'o dry Coco-Pebbles!) I did discover apple-cinnamon Cheerios are great - with applejuice! To this day I can't eat apple-cinnamon Cheerios without it.
Go ahead - try the Cheerios thang - it's great! I miss it - well, and maybe the PB-n-B's, too.