The Beet Story

     Okay, this is an email I sent Ben wayyyyy back in the day.  It makes me laugh, and I hope it does the same for you:

   For supper this evening Mom served us beets.  I had finished my potatoes and chicken, and had been looking at my piece of beet for quite some time before I decided that yes, I had to eat it.  I placed the beet on the end of my fork and sniffed it.  My hypothesis proved correct…it still smelled like soil.  Sort of like the inside of my lizard aquarium.   Anyway, my plan was to zing my fork up to my mouth and stick the nasty thing into my mouth before I could think about it.  Sort of like when you’re poised at the top of a diving board and you can’t stand just standing up there and you know that as soon as you jump off  it will all be good, its just the launch that’s difficult.  So I gripped my fork, and launched. 

   Silly me.  Having little to no experience with beets (thankfully), I was unaware of the fact that beets are extremely slippery.  On the way to my mouth, that beet saw it’s opportunity for escape and by golly he took it.  Man, it’s a good thing I had the thing aimed away from the table and not toward it.  I heard a ‘whoosh’ and a ‘bump bump’ and a dull ‘thud’.  I looked down at my beetless fork.  It took me about half a second to figure out what had happened.  Ruthy saw too.  We both burst out laughing.  I had to put down my fork so I could snort properly into my hands as tears were streaming down my face.  Ruthy managed to get out a “Where’d the beet go?”  I sort of squealed, “I…don’t…know!”  Of course Mom and Dad are like, “Find it!  Meg if there’s a spot on my floor…you know you’re still eating that…I can’t believe…Meg!” 

   Oh man I couldn’t keep it together.  I finally gained some control over my laughter enough to go blow my nose and retrieve  a wet napkin to clean the floor (“Not the washcloth for goodness sake!”)  I was blowing my nose, finally calming down, when I heard from the table Ruthy’s voice sort of mumbling to herself, “I saw this flash of red go right past…”   Of course that made me lose it all over again, and I was in the middle of a blow, so it hurt my nose.  And my ears.  One more thing before I go, and I dearly hope Mom and Dad aren’t reading this, because I know they’ll make me a whole new batch of beets to eat because of it, but did you know that you shouldn’t try to hide a partially-chewed beet in a napkin?  …It will stain through…