If You Can’t Beat Them, Eat With Them!

George sighed as he looked down at his breakfast – an ice cream sundae with gummy worms, AGAIN!

“Mom, why can’t I eat porridge or oatmeal like other kids?” he asked for what was probably the hundredth time. “I am TIRED of eating junk food.”

George’s mother squinted her eyes at George and said, “There is nothing wrong with this food. I’ll bet your friends at school wish they were eating this right now.”

Even though he knew that was true, George just played with his ice cream until it had melted into a globby mess.

“Eat your ice cream, young man,” his father bellowed. “Eat it and grow big and strong like your mother.”

* * *

George knew two things about his lunch before even looking at it. He knew that his lunchbox would be full of junk food, and he also knew that the other boys in his class would give him a hard time about it.

“Georgie Porgie,” they would say laughing, “is your house made of gingerbread?!”

Or they would squeal, “Georgie Porgie, do you know the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane?!”

Or worst yet, “Georgie Porgie, did you bring Puddin’ and Pie?!”

Now, jealousy is a funny thing. Sometimes it makes people do nasty and hurtful things, like the boys in George’s class. They wanted to eat junk food, saw that George had some and that they didn’t, and went about making George’s life miserable.

The funny thing was that George was also jealous. He wished he could have a nice cheese and tomato sandwich and a carton of milk like Billy always brought. He wished he could have a bunch of grapes or a bright red apple like Andy always brought. He wished he could have some carrot sticks and cucumber like Philip always brought. But instead of making himself disagreeable, George just lost his appetite.

But by the third week of school, George had had enough. When one of the boys said, “Lookie, George has a cookie,” George decided to do something drastic. Something really outrageous. George offered it to him. And do you know what? That boy turned right around and offered George some veggie sticks and dip.

Now, I won’t lie to you and say that George became best friends with the boys in his class. George was smart enough to know that he did not want to be friends with people who think that it is okay to pick on others. But George was also smart enough to know that he would never get anything good to eat if he didn’t make the trades.

So things went on nicely. Every day George would dole out his junk food and every day he would get healthy foods like fruits and vegetables and cheese and yogurt in return.

The only glitch was when Halloween came around and the boys in George’s class did not need to trade their lunches. They had their own “stash of trash” to eat. For one whole week George was resigned to eating chips, cookies and chocolate bars for lunch. But, since kids are kids, it did not take the boys long to gobble up their goodies and it did not take them long to begin trading with George again. And everyone was happy (except for the mothers who wondered why their sons always had chocolate bar wrappers stuffed in their pockets!)