A Trayfe Classic: confusing frummie tots for nearly 50 years
So I will eat them in a box.
And I will eat them with a fox.
And I will eat them in a house.
And I will eat them with a mouse.
I overheard my mom, in for a quick visit from back East (that’s East Tennessee), reading these words to the Toddler this morning. So, when he came downstairs right after, I was not too surprised to hear his breakfast request:
“I want Green Eggs and Ham!”
Me: “How might you ask that in a more polite way?”
Him: “I want Green Eggs and Ham, PLEASE!”
“Well,” I wheedle, guilty because I just made him say please for something I had no intention of providing. I am trying to sound nonchalant lest a too-emphatic “No” on the ham will trigger his first lustings for the forbidden.
“Well,” I say again, “I can’t do much about the ham, sweetie, because it isn’t kosher. But we can manage the eggs.” I sound very peppy on the words can and eggs.
His lower lip descends, flattens, and spreads out like a U-brace from the hardware store.
“I want Green Eggs AND Ham!”
Luckily, my mom had just bought some brown eggs, and the novelty of watching brown eggs get cracked, beaten up and colored green distracted him from the absence of ham. He was happy. (I made sure he realized green eggs were a Grandma Special, and that I did not know how to make them.)
We keep kosher, so ham is never an option. But at Toddler’s school, every Thursday’s lunch menu features Ham/Pineapple Gratin. Which means every Thursday his lunch is a grilled cheese sandwich (or just “grillcheese” in Nashville). I always wonder if he looks longingly at his colleague’s lunch trays, eyeing the forbidden casserole. Actually, I’ve heard that most of the kids hate that dish anyway, and the trays end up getting scraped into the trash.
But already I’m thinking about the first time his friends chow down on a pepperoni pizza…
Bible Belt Balabusta 
