SAMPLE OF JAROM's HUMOR -- From a Family Blog Jarom Wrote a While Back

Well, we had Kaylee's family over for labor day weekend, and I must say that it was a pleasant experience. We entertained Mama and Papa H (Russell and Arla to everyone else) and Andrea, Neal, Lindsay, and Heidi--the demolition crew.

I really do love my new extended family, and some of the observations of the weekend must be written down for posterity's sake (or for future blackmailing purposes). Lindsay is actually the sole member of the demolition crew, Heidi aspires to the title, and Andrea and Neal merely represent a threat to the local lizard population. I'll get to the stories in a second. First of all I must say that I can't wait to have some rug rats of my very own. I'm going to be a wonderful parent. I'm picking up all sorts of good advice for keeping them in line. My favorite involves having my daughter's date leave a $20 deposit with me that I get to keep if he brings her home late. A friend Ed Brown suggests I could take up gun cleaning or machete sharpening on the front porch when my daughter's date arrives.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, because first I need to have some children, and then they need to survive childhood under my care. This is a concern because I'll probably give them a complex before age 10 by laughing at them whenever they do something dumb. To illustrate this point, I relate the following incident: One night, while Kaylee's family was staying with us, I heard a strange noise coming from the kitchen. I knew Lindsay was in there by herself. Lindsay is eleven years old, and has a knack for hurting herself while destroying things around her. If you've ever seen her on a bicycle, you'd know what I mean. This noise came from the kitchen again--a grunting sound like a buffalo with an intestinal disorder. "Lindsay! What are you doing in there?" I called from the living room. In reply came a final grunt followed by a thunk and then an "Oooowwww!!" Now, you know how carpenters put those false drawer panels in front of the sink because there's no room for an actual drawer? I entered the scene to find that Lindsay, while searching for silverware, had found this drawer panel (located, incidentally, right were the sink was). The drawer, of course, wouldn't open and Lindsay, determined to rescue the spoons and forks that must surly be trapped therein, grasped the top of the fake drawer front with both hands and pulled with all her might. The drawer, not anticipating this move, grunted under each pull and finally gave in to Linsey's request for entry. The drawer panel came off and landed on her toe. So Linsey got a hurt toe, the drawer panel got a closer look at the floor, and we now have direct visual access to the bottom of our kitchen sink. And I laughed at her. I laughed because the damage to the kitchen had already been done and I didn't want her to think I was mad. She would probably learn her lesson on fake drawers a lot faster that way too. For these reasons I will probably laugh at my children a lot, and then write down what they did so other people can laugh at them later. It's a cruel world, isn't it.

Heidi is a league all her own. Think for a moment of some of the classic hunger scenes in modern drama. Perhaps you thought of Scarlet O'Hara, wandering her estate looking for food and finally downing a radish plucked strait out of the ground. Maybe you envisioned the princess in Space Balls wandering the desert feverishly calling out "room service...room service..." Choose your favorite because Heidi has them all beat. Imagine this: It's getting close to dinner time. The family is watching TV while the food is cooking. There Heidi lay, prostrate on the ground, pulling herself by her hands toward the pantry. I'm not exaggerating this even a bit. "Kaylee, I'm starving..." she moans deliriously. "I need food NOW..." Kaylee says "Were making soup and it will be done in a little bit. You can have some bread right now if you're really hungry." "No, not bread..." she barely has strength to utter. "Cereal." Keep in mind, she is only five years old. The cereal is in the pantry. Heidi knows this because she saw us put it in there and she had already raided the pantry on her own and found out that all the sugar and fluff that she needs to keep her poor famished body alive was put on a shelf out of her reach. Thus her only chance of survival was to rely on the mercies of those who would rather have her die a horrible fetal-position death right there on the kitchen floor than see her eat cereal before dinner.

To add to this scene, let me give you some background on her family's eating habits. Kaylee grew up with a loving mother who was extremely interested in her children's health. Today's traditional square meals, such as ramen and Taco Bell, fell under the label "food that you would not see at the family dinner table, but rather would be sneaked in via pizza delivery late at night when most of the household was asleep." Mama H's brand of good food, and this is what her children were fed for much of their young life, fell under the category "food with substantial nutritional quality and nasty aftertastes." Hence, Kaylee enjoys eating strait parsley and soy flakes. She has all sorts of information on herbs and green leafy plants. I don't think I've even seen a preprocessed yam before I married her. I just finished an oatmeal cookie with flax in it.
Now you've got to understand where I came from. I grew up with a working mother and two younger sisters. We ate well, don't get me wrong, but often it was not the nutrition information on the side of the box that decided the meal, but whether the box displayed the words "microwave instructions". The strangest meal I'd ever gotten at home (and, coincidentally, the only meal on record that I hadn't been able to finish) was when my mother turned all of our food green for St. Patrick's Day. I was able to finish the green peas, but had trouble with the green tuna fish casserole. I believe it was the green milk that pushed me over the edge.

So Kaylee and I have different backgrounds to work with. Kaylee has managed to turn me on to bean sprouts, of all things, but the nutrients in the sprouts have been attacked and subdued by the oil and fat in the italian salad dressing and cheddar cheese I cover it with. We're working on it. Mama H, on the other hand, has almost given up completely. Her older children (Kaylee is the 3rd of 9) remember well the days of their mother's green health drinks and mystery meals prepared without hindrance of a cookbook, and to the younger ones it is but a fleeting memory during a moment of panic. Her creativity took roots and herbs in directions that they had never gone, and perhaps were not meant to go before. Her children honestly appreciate her efforts, but when Kaylee wrote home from the mission field in Chile thanking her mother for the food she was raised on because "I can eat anything down here thanks to you," the victory was bittersweet. And when Neal involuntarily threw up on the dinning room table after sampling some of Mama H's okra stir-fry, it was plain to see that her good intentions were being met with opposition.

After years of these kinds of responses to her healthy cooking, Kaylee's mother has basically given up. There remains small victories to be had from time to time, like when Heidi was found watching TV while eating directly from a bottle of dehydrated barley grass she had taken from the cupboard. But the next day she was found watching TV gnawing on a stick of butter she had taken out of the refrigerator, so what can you do? Heidi now lives on a diet of cereal, ice-cream, and candy. I wouldn't have believed it, but that's all Heidi ate the whole weekend she was at our house. We did give her a bowl of soup like we promised, and she may have tasted it, but as far as I can tell she just took it strait to the living room and left it on the floor in there. Ten minutes later the famine struck again and Heidi was given cereal for her performance.

I actually met the grown-up version of Heidi a while ago at a friend's party. Our friends name was John, and he and his wife were taking care of his great grandmother who sat hunched over in her wheelchair awaiting her food.

John's wife: "Grandma! Do you want some spaghetti?"
Great Grandma (indignantly): "I won't eat spaghetti." (Keep in mind here that great grandma is about 150-160 years old)
John's wife: "Grandma, you haven't eaten anything all afternoon. What do you want?"
Great Grandma (mustering the dignity of the ancients): "I don't want spaghetti. I WANT ICE CREAM."
John: "You want some cake with that, Grandma?"
John's wife: "SHE IS NOT EATING ICE CREAM!!!"
Great Grandma (mumbling to self): "I've been keeping myself alive since I was 14 years old. I know what I need to eat...grumble grumble..."

I write these things down and share them with the world for posterity's sake. And also because I am offended that Heidi wouldn't eat my soup, so I'm hoping that by preserving these stories they will come back to haunt her every time she invites a boy home for family dinner. Having taken all things into consideration, I can only tell you one thing: if Heidi, be it now or 145 years from now, ever falls under my care, she is going eat the healthy food that I cook her (and I'm not talking ramen and Taco Bell). If she puts on her starvation act, I'll turn all the junk food in the house green.