Monday, October 30, 2006

Warm Cakes

Once upon a long time ago, before Maya was born, and indeed not long after Maya's Mama and Dado were born, Granny was a young woman called Mom and she lived in Berkeley with Maya's Mama, who was called Julie, and Uncle Richard, who was just Richard. Now, when Julie was about six months old, so young that all she ate was baby food, Mom used to take Richard and Julie out to a restaurant every little once in a while. When they went to a restaurant, Mom would feed Julie baby food, and Mom and Richard would share a meal, because Richard was only two and a half years old, and so young that although he ate regular food, he didn't eat much of it.

Now, one of the places that Richard loved for Mom to take him was an Italian restaurant. The reason he loved to go there so much was that they had a most wonderful pizza, and they would make a little one just the right size for Mom and Richard to share. Oh, Richard loved that pizza! Well, one day Mom and Richard went to that Italian restaurant when Richard was very, very hungry. When the waitress brought the pizza, Richard wanted it right now! Well, as Maya knows very well, pizza in a restaurant comes to the table much hotter than pizza that is delivered or taken out. So, Richard reached for a piece of pizza, and Mom tried to stop him and said, "No! Hot! That's very hot!" But it was too late. He had already grabbed the pizza and put it in his mouth, hot cheese side first. "Aghhhhhhhhhh!" screamed Richard, because the hot pizza hurt! Oh, poor Richard. The roof of his mouth was blistered from the hot cheese. Oh, how he cried and cried. Oh, Mom comforted him, and the waitress brought ice to make his mouth feel better, and Julie cried because she knew Richard was hurt and that made her sympathetic. Finally, Richard calmed down, and stopped crying. But he didn't eat any pizza that day, not even when it got as cold as ice. No, indeed.

Indeed, Richard was so impressed with what the word hot meant, and how hot food could hurt you, that until he was four years old, he wouldn't drink hot chocolate. No, it had to be called warm chocolate. And he wouldn't eat hot cakes. They had to be pancakes. No hot dogs for him, only frankfurters! No hot pretzels, only warm ones.

13 comments:

J said...

At least he learned. I was too young, I guess, and now I'm too old or something, because I always burn my mouth on that first bite of pizza. Sometimes hot chocolate, too. I'm only just now learning not to plop the steaming hot cheese from French Onion soup in my mouth.

J said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anvilcloud said...

Poor Richard. Adult me has burned his mouth on various things.

Chancy said...

Speaking of "HOT," I had taught my little daughter to never, NEVER TOUCH the stove as it was very, very HOT, hot hot.

She was 13 months old,and standing in her crib when we brought her brand new baby brother home from the hospital.

She reached out to grab at baby brother. I said "No no, Don't touch him"

She smiled and said,

"HOT, HOT"

It is a wonder baby brother did not acquire the nickname "HOT"

:)

Melissa said...

That is a cute story. Good thing he got over it though, as it would be hard to order warm chocolate with a straight face.

Maya's Granny said...

Melissa, since he is now 42, it would indeed.

Cherry said...

My parent's didn't have a video camera when we were growing up, but my dad did have an audio recorder.. the reel to reel kind, and he would occasionally record everyday life.

One tape I found has a recording of us sitting down to a dinner of pizza. I don't know if I grabbed the pizza or if someone told me it was hot, but there is loud and clear audio of me screaming "HOT! HOT! HOT!". By the sound of it I was probably 1.5 or 2 years old. Priceless.

Anonymous said...

Wow! Today I went to Fry's with Richard , and he wouldn't even eat hot Red Vines.

Anonymous said...

What a nice story and so well told.

Reminded me of the time I went to a chinese restaurant and had "something" on a skewer, put it over the flame and then put it in my mouth -HOT!!

Cuppa said...

I have burned my tongue more than once on a hot cup of tea. Ouch! More milk please.

Tracy said...

Maya's Granny, you tell great stories! Maya is so blessed to have a collection of stories right here on your blog that she can check in and read whenever she wants to for years and years to come!

kenju said...

Poor little guy! I can sympathize with him as I know from experience that there is little worse than burning the roof of your mouth with hot pizza!

Good lesson, though, no matter how hard it was in the learning.

Anonymous said...

that is one hard lesson to learn even when you are 60, much less when you are two!! poor baby!!