Spaghetti

This story is a favorite of my niece (currently 12) and nephew (currently 10). They like hearing stories about disagreements their mother (my sister) and I had when we were growing up.

My students are about their age. And I’ve found that if you REALLY want to keep a kid that age in thrall you should tell them a story about teenage wizards.

If you don’t know any stories about teenage wizards, the next best thing to do would be to tell them a story involving sibling rivalry.

(Kids can totally relate to stories about sibling rivalry. Unless they’re only-children, in which case I really can’t advise you on what kind of story to tell them. Just accept the fact that they’re going to turn out to be spoiled, selfish, entitled brats with superiority complexes. Either that or insufferable hypochondriacs. Allow yourself time to grieve, then let it go and spend your precious time and energy on something - or somebody - else.)

ANYWAY. Kids LOVE stories about adults (especially their parents) not behaving as model citizens. Give yourself bonus points if the story you’re telling them also contains bathroom humor and/or bad words.

...

Once when I was fourteen and my sister was eleven my mom made spaghetti. (She actually made spaghetti more than once that year, but this time was a little different as you’re about to find out.)

Three of us - my mom, dad, and I, scooped reasonable-sized portions of spaghetti onto our plates from the pot on the kitchen stove. My sister, however, (who probably weighed about 80 pounds at the time) took a HEAPING helping of spaghetti and piled it on her plate before joining us at the kitchen table to eat.

When I saw how much food my sister had on her plate I scoffed and said, “There’s no way you could POSSIBLY eat that much spaghetti!”

She insisted that she COULD eat that much spaghetti. So we argued back and forth for a few minutes before one or the other of us got the idea to use some of the money we’d each earned babysitting to place a bet on whether she could (or couldn’t) eat all that spaghetti.

(We were living in Saudi Arabia at the time and the expatriate schools there only went up to the ninth grade. The older kids went off to boarding schools, which meant that a fourteen-year-old could make bank as a babysitter because there weren’t that many of us - and we were the oldest kids around.

It also meant that it was considered perfectly acceptable for an eleven-year-old to babysit younger children. So eleven-year-olds could make pretty good money too.)

My mom, dad, and I watched as my sister pushed her food around on her plate, occasionally eating a mouthful or two.

When she had eaten MAYBE as much as a quarter of what was on her plate she stood up and announced that she was full. I smiled smugly and told her pay up.

My bratty, deviant, CHEAT of a little sister smiled sweetly, got a piece of plastic wrap from the cabinet, covered the almost-untouched plate of spaghetti with it, and put the spaghetti in the refrigerator before coming back to the table to let me know she was ready to collect on our wager.

I sputtered and said she couldn’t do that. She said she could. Our parents were watching with great interest to see how we were going to resolve this.

We asked my dad to mediate. We each put forth our arguments. He considered the matter for a few minutes and said:

“You didn’t say she had to eat it all in one sitting, Val. If she (eventually) eats all the spaghetti on her plate, she wins the bet. Try being more specific next time.”

Now it was my sister’s turn to smile smugly.

I was livid. There was no way I was going to let my kid sister get the better of me.

So I went to the refrigerator, took out the plate of spaghetti, peeled back the plastic wrap, and spit in it.

My sister howled in protest. My parents were laughing too hard by then to intervene. I had won. I knew my sister wouldn’t finish her spaghetti after I’d spit in it.

...

I don’t think either of us paid up. I think we both grudgingly acknowledged each other’s cleverness and just let the matter drop.

(I still can’t believe I didn’t get in trouble for ruining that plate of spaghetti!) 😂