The Obligatory Taco by Murry Smith

There it sits; the obligatory taco, staring me in the face with its literally cheesy grin and lettuce drooling out the ends. It is not the first obligatory taco I’ve met these last few years, but this one seemed rather more pathetic than the others. I’ve heard tales of children eating on occasion and of their own accord no less, but I have yet to see this with my own eyes. I am beginning to wonder if it is truth or, as I fear more likely, fable (not unlike the loch ness monster or jeans that I can convince my wife flatters her figure). I frankly believe that my three year old daughter has not eaten in over two years. It was then when she was first introduced to solid foods, and I think the best phrasing for what happened is that the solid food “just didn’t take.”
Much like a liver transplant that has been rejected by the host, food will without fail be rejected by my daughter. We have tried every measure to implanted food into her mouth over the years with no less skill than a surgeon and more cunning than a politician up for re-election. But we have only succeeded in finding the ingenuity with which my daughter can expel food from her face. There is the “garbage truck” where her jaw drops and her tongue slowly pushes the food out of her mouth and lets the food fall where it may, the “ooze” where her lips are pursed and she forces the food out to dribble down her chin and off to Neverland for all she cared (although onto my shoe was the more likely result), the “ooze: variation” which is exactly like the regular “ooze” except done through clenched teeth making it much more likely to have rogue sprays of who-knows-what fly out due to the high pressure, the “sprinkler” which is rather self explanatory (just imagine warm summer days with the sprinkler going in the back yard spraying the water in a slow arcing motion only instead of water it is chunks of meatloaf and gravy), the “huff” where she appears to be angry at the food in her mouth and with her arms crossed (a necessary requirement) she makes a huffing expulsion of the food out of her mouth, the variation “huff with accidental nose ejection” where it is exactly like the regular “huff” except that she forgets to open her mouth when she makes her huffing noise and the only exit is out the nose, the “magical bite” (my personal favorite) which is where she makes the glob of chewed food appear in any number of places without even the appearance of opening her mouth (her favorite places being anywhere you will sit or step while it is still warm), and of course there is the “llama spit” where she has taken such personal umbrage at the food that letting it fall out of her mouth would not be sufficient to show her disdain so it must be put out with force to achieve the proper distance between it and herself. All of these are without a doubt done with a stoic, expressionless face like she had just seen a kitten mauled by a groundhog.
At one time we did not even bother ordering food for her at restaurants because we knew that she simply did not eat and we feared what astonishing things she would do to the other patrons in the restaurant if she ended up by some accident getting food into her mouth (without her conscious knowledge I am certain). We knew that we could not simply say to the waiter “Oh, she doesn’t eat” because it would be exactly translated as “we do not feed her so please call the authorities immediately.” So when the waiter would ask what we wanted to order for her, my wife and I would always give each other a quick glance and with an acknowledging nod to each other put up the united defense of, “we’ll just let her eat off of our plates.” This wasn’t exactly true. In fact it was a down right lie. The things that this girl can do to your food to make it absolutely inedible boggles the mind, so we would, in fact, not let her anywhere near our plates. I guess it was just our polite way of saying, “We don’t want to pay for a plate of food at your establishment for our daughter because she will not eat it and will very likely slather it on a neighboring diner’s silk skirt.”
But we began to suspect that the wait staff was on to our trickery, so we started to order an extra plate to throw them off of our trail. We would even put various articles of food on the plate to give deeper cover for our charade (we cleverly put items on the plate that would make the least mess possible if ejected from the mouth if by some miracle she decided to pretend to want to eat something). But finally we have arrived at the point where we suppose we should provide her with her own food whatever the consequences may be for us or the nicely pressed trousers of the gentleman behind us. We order her a plate wherever we go with full knowledge that it will definitely not be eaten, will be packed up (untouched), and taken home to be stared at by all interested parties. It will then be shuttled off to be eaten by the raccoons and other such vermin at the local landfill (all with nary a touch by human hand).
Even when we go through the drive thru we will order the obligatory food to take home and set out on the table like a bowl of wax fruit (but with less of a chance of being eaten) to sit there and be looked at but not to be eaten. So there the obligatory taco still sits and sits and sits.
I did happen to see a picture the other day of my daughter eating at a Chinese restaurant. Much like the pictures of sasquatch that pop up from time to time it was doubtlessly blurry and left me wondering if it was all a hoax. You can clearly make out a half eaten bowl of egg drop soup (that I hear rumors she likes).

And I can be thankful that at least it wasn’t the wonton soup.