The Liver Incident ...explained....

**Disclaimer**As a parent now I do find myself trying to encourage healthy eating habits, however, some things are so repugnant... that no matter how healthy they are for you... there is no way in heck I am gonna make my child eat it. That being said... I will explain the Liver Incident from my point of view. I am sure my sisters, and father can expound on any points they deem necessary, however, I "may or may not " take license and embellish it a little. Just a little...

I grew up in a family that ate dinner together every night. While this did provide me with some rather fond memories, there are a few that were quite unforgettable, and others that were the stuff nightmares are made of. I kid really. My family was and is very close knit.... like I said dinner every night together. We rarely ever ate in front of the television or any other distracting device. My mother is a very good cook, and we never left hungry. Always a hot meal, always from scratch and almost always something that we kids would eat. Menu rotations often include family favorites such as spaghetti, goulash, tacos, beef stroganoff, mustard steak, and every ones favorite when living in Virginia Beach, steamed blue crab, tautaug (fish) flounder, etc.

However, there was one item on the menu rotation that not one single kid in our family liked....that's right LIVER. I shudder and retch a little thinking about it to this day. My mother loved fried liver and onions, so it would show up occasionally. The four of us kids (and my father now I am finding out) would be at the dinner table for what seemed liked days, because we grew up in the era that you eat what is on your plate before you are excused, and you would sit there until you did. Because you know that there are starving kids in Africa that would love to eat this stuff... we all heard that so you know what I mean.

On this particular night, liver and onions was on the menu, and I can vividly remember the wallpaper in the kitchen, the white corelle plates, and the four of us sitting at the table trying any which way we could to choke down the liver. I don't think I was over the age of 10, so Holly would be about 9, Brad about 7 and Wendy maybe 6. We used all the tricks you could think of... you know sneaking the liver off the plate and into the napkin trick, the hide under the potatoes trick, the scoot everything around on the plate to make it look like you had eaten some of it. 9 times out of 10 we got caught, and were made to sit there and eat. Crying, screaming, and torture would ensue as we were tied to the chair and forced to chew and swallow each piece of liver on our plates.....not really but it sure seemed like torture, and there definitely was crying and screaming from all of us kids. This evening, fortunately for us, Brad my brother took one bite of liver and tried to swallow it. He swallowed it and then started gagging, and threw up right in the middle of the table. This started a chain reaction... before we knew it we were all violently retching and gagging at the table. Now I am not for certain who if any of us actually threw up after the fact, but the gagging was going on, and my mom and dad were up and out of the seats pretty darn fast trying to get Brad away from the table and to keep us from throwing up too. Needless to say we did not finish our meal that night. I can't remember if we had something else or not... but we NEVER had to endure eating liver again. Holly, Wendy and I often joke about this to this day... and we each claim that we paid my brother to throw up.

Oh look for the 5000 post winner later this evening.....