SOL19 Slice #4: About that ice cream cone

I am participating in the
 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOL19)
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, every day for the month of March 2019.

After I ate the peas, I refused to eat another bite. Every fiber of my four year old self protested. I stared down at my dinner plate: six small chunks of Spam and a scoop of mashed potatoes glared back at me. Dad insisted, "Young lady, eat your dinner, not another word." Five slow, agonizing swallows of the tiny meat bites plus one lucky slip of the fork, which sent one flying to the floor, and the Spam was gone. The mashed potatoes loomed like an enormous white and crusty mountain. My eyes bulged in horror. There was no way I was eating that.

Dad's voice broke into my protest - "You are going to miss out on dessert, if this keeps up, young lady."

I began to whine. Being the only girl, and a young one at that, I received a little more slack for whining than my brothers. "I don't want to eat the po - ta - TOES! I don't like po - ta - TOES!" 

Truth be told, my brothers hadn't eaten their peas. I had eaten all my peas. I liked peas. Why was I being forced to eat everything?

My older brother (7) taunted me, "You're such a baby!!" Dad silenced him with just one look.

So began the stare-down between me and the mashed potatoes. Neither budged, though the scoop of potatoes loomed larger and larger. Mom got up to clear everyone else's plates. "Listen to your father and eat those potatoes."

Dad got up right behind her, to get the ice cream and cones, and grabbed my plate with the untouched potatoes as he went. "Okay, that's it. Time's up. You're done. No dessert for you."

I dissolved into tears, big sobs. Ice cream for everyone but me?

I overheard a happy tittering in the kitchen, Mom and Dad, a laugh, and then Dad came out of the kitchen - "I changed my mind! Second chance, Lady Jane - here's an ice cream cone for you." And with that he presented me with a big vanilla cone - of mashed potatoes.

I looked up expectantly, reached toward the mockery of a cone, and there was an immediate melding of my sobs of shock, disappointment, and hurt with raucous, teasing laughter from everyone else in the family.

This story is family lore that has been repeated throughout the years, and considered a great joke by everyone in the family.

Except me.