rare words

last night, sometime around 10:00 p.m., as we were in bed, aaron spoke some rare words. he said he was hungry.

aaron barely ever expresses desires to eat food, which is quite the opposite of myself. you can imagine the excitement that flittered into my heart upon hearing these words, and the dreams that i had that perhaps this once, aaron might eat in excess, as i so often do. suddenly, my sleepiness vanished and my sole intent was to get him out of bed and eating a bowl of honey nut cheerios.

after telling him, for about 10 minutes, to leave the warmth and coziness of the bed, venture through the cold, darkness in his underwear, and go eat a bowl of honey nut cheerios, i started sensing, from the depths of my bowels, an intense and insatiable craving for honey nut cheerios. aaron kept saying he didn't even want any cereal, but now i kept saying that i did. somehow, the roles had switched. talking about cheerios so much, and trying to get someone else to eat them actually sparked in me my own craving for cheerios. and then, the roles switched again, when aaron finally came to agreement within himself and i decided that it was silly to eat cheerios at 10:30 at night. it didn't take long, probably a matter of seconds, in fact, for me to switch back over and initiate the trek to the kitchen.

aaron didn't follow at first, but as soon as the sound of those cheerios hitting the bowl was heard, he came dragging himself into the kitchen, like a hungry mole blinded by the light. we both poured ourselves hefty bowls of cheerios, and then proceeded back to the warmth of our bed, where we scarfed our cereal snack.

after all the milk was gone, we snuggled back up for a good sleep with stomaches full. or so i thought. to my surprise, only a few minutes later, these words (or words almost similar to these) came our of aaron's mouth: "i'm so hungry i could go open a can of tuna and eat it raw and then scarf down three whoppers and still be hungry." wow. this kind of food passion rarely bubbles within aaron. i was thrilled. i told him now to go eat an apple. but he refused. a turkey sandwich. more refusal. scrambled eggs. still no. i went back to the apple, and even offered to go get it and bring it to him in bed. he refused. i may have persisted more and gone and got the apple anyways, just to see what he would do if it were actually in his hands, but all the memories of finding day old, uneaten apples in the deep caverns of aaron's backpack haunted my mind, not wanting to let another apple's hopes of being eaten get so postponed that that poor apple's psyche has turned on eating itself.

i gave up and went to sleep.

more amazing food secrets were revealed today when i told aaron about the groceries i bought for him to eat while i am gone for the rest of the week. fifty cent frozen burritos, one dollar frozen pizzas, bagels and cream cheese, one dollar pasta sauce for the noodles we have, and a real treat of wheat thins baked crackers. garden veggie flavored. his eyes actually were glowing at the description of all this food and he admitted that he probably would eat it all while i was gone. he confessed that when i make such a fuss about wanting him to eat more food, it actually makes him want to eat less. that almost crushed my little heart. my food obsession has turned terribly south and is now working against me! my love for food is destroying aaron's desire to eat! how can this be?

well, he can eat all the frozen burritos he wants while i am gone.