Pie Hole Rules

Punky's dad is gross.  

Not all the time...only in certain respects.  And eating is one of them.

No, he doesn't chew with his mouth open.  He doesn't wipe greasy fingers in his t-shirt.  His clothes are free of permanent ketchup stains.  He cleans up after himself, although I do find pretzel crumbs scratching my ass in bed from time to time.  Grrr...

And it's not that he eats odd things like rattlesnakes or bugs.  He's not into eating cute little furry creatures like baby bunnies.  He's not into any exotic foods at all.  Hell, I can't even get him to eat Chinese.

But the problem does lie in what he eats...and when.  Our fridge could give the fridge in any science lab a run for the money.  Things could be in there weeks...and he eats them.  If there are no visible signs of mold and no overbearing odors, he eats it.  Expiration dates are meaningless... just a gimmick so people throw out perfectly good food and buy more.  He leaves pizza with meat toppings on the counter overnight and eats it for lunch the next day.  He likes it better that way.  

I, on the other hand, tend to obsess about bacteria growing in or on my food.  I check expiration dates every time I reach for something in the fridge.  It doesn't matter that I had a sandwich the day before and used that very same jar of mayo, I still peek at the date before using it.  And I won't eat or drink anything that is even so much as one day past date.  Just the thought makes me gag...it doesn't matter what it is.  I will eat leftovers, within a reasonable time frame of course, but only if they have been properly stored and promptly refrigerated after dinner.  That means sealed containers and an hour after at most, not a loose sheet of aluminum foil four hours later.

So, to co-exist peacefully without me having uncontrollable urges to vomit, we needed some basic ground rules.  I don't eat anything I'm not comfortable with, he doesn't cook anything using ingredients that I wouldn't be comfortable with, and when he feels the need to eat something that falls into the science experiment category I must be in another room or simply not home.  And I agreed not to throw out any of his shit in case he planned on eating it.

Now we have a baby eating real food.  The rules had to be amended to apply to her as well.  He may have a stomach of steel but she surely doesn't.  I don't want her eating anything questionable.  Period.  And she always wants some of whatever we're having, so eating his bacteria-laden food in front of her is not an option.  He respects my wishes, or at least he says he does...

Enter the babysitter.  

One day this week she told me Punky was being particularly fussy at lunch time, refusing veggies and other stuff she normally adores.  So she gave her some leftover pasta and sauce she found in the fridge as well as half of a baloney sandwich.  Yeah, as tiny as she is, my kid eats like a horse.

Anyway, my heart immediately skipped a beat.  That sauce was from a week ago.  The baloney that clearly states "use within seven days of opening" had been open for more like three weeks.  Every bone in my body wanted to take her to the emergency room for food poisoning but I restrained myself and let nature take its course.

Okay, so she didn't appear to get sick, unless you count the pound of multicolored shit that burst through the constraints of her diaper right before bed that night, but otherwise she seemed fine.  Yeah, I realize the extreme crap-isode may have been unrelated and didn't necessarily indicate botchilism, but it was an odd coincidence nonetheless.

The next day I briefed the babysitter on the above highlights and told her not to feed Punky anything from the fridge.  Ever.  Unless we tell her to, of course.  She understood completely since she is married to his brother and apparently the gene for eating spoiled food runs in families.  He's the same way.  Ugh.

Hopefully Punky didn't inherit it.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.