THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 3, 1995 TAG: 9509060658
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K3 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL MOMENTS
SOURCE: BY KEITH MONROE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
A RIDDLE: What weighs 130 pounds, makes messes all over the floor and eats more than its own weight in food a day?
If you guessed a Great Dane that hasn't been house trained, you're close. But the correct answer is: a 15-year-old boy. I know. One invaded my home this summer.
It's my stepson and he's grown a foot since his last visit. He attends school where his father resides but spends summers and holidays with us. He's skinny enough to masquerade as the young Frank Sinatra or the old Mahatma Gandhi, but he eats like Orson Welles or Henry VIII.
Either the kid has a tapeworm or the metabolism of a hummingbird. From dawn to long after dusk, he's constantly eating and drinking, though rarely making merry. As a member in good standing of the teen guild, he is required to spend his time slouching around, cultivating a brooding Byronic pose, listening to morose slacker music and falling off a) skateboards b) bicycles and c) surfboards.
Mostly, however, he's in front of the tube inhaling food. We call him Jaws. Eggos and ice cream, chips and corn on the cob, fruit and fruit rollups, sandwiches, pizza and Slurpees. These are the days of Cheerwine and hoagies.
Mealtimes are a vision of bankruptcy as everything on the table vanishes and he starts looking around for more.
A trip to the grocery with this kid is like watching one of those game shows whose object is to fill up as many shopping carts as possible in 60 seconds. Except, as fast as he sneaks snacks into the basket, I am trying to get them back on the shelf. Together, we look like one of those juggling acts hurling Indian clubs at each other.
If eating is his avocation, drinking is his calling. By actual count, he recently went through two cases of soft drinks and several gallons of mix-it-yourself lemonade in four days. At dinner, he gets up six or seven times for drink refills before the rest of us have filled our plates with food.
Not only does he eat and drink constantly, he does it here, there and everywhere. I know because he leaves behind a trail of plates and glasses, cups and mugs, packaging materials and drink droplets.
And now the kid is not content to simply consume mass quantities, as the Coneheads used to say. Junk food is no longer good enough for him. He's begun to demand quality. He sneers at home cooking. We have foolishly let him sample some of the finer things in life - shellfish and game and nifty desserts - and now he thinks he can make a habit of the high life.
Instead of clamoring for a trip to Taco Bell as in days of yore, this kid is now agitating for duck with orange sauce, crab and lobster, crepes and creme brulee. Now I know how Dr. Frankenstein felt. Not only have we created a monster, but it seems to be half beast, half Julia Child. Bon appetit!
The bad news is, he's not only going to continue eating, he's going to want to start driving - most likely to four-star restaurants. And if his taste in transportation reflects his taste in cuisine, he's going to expect to get around in a Bentley, a Porsche or one of those Testosterone vehicles. Holy checkbook, Batman, who's going to pay for our teenage mutant bingeing driver?
The good news is, it's only a few more years until this kid can get a job and start paying for his own chow. He's in for a rude awakening. When he finally realizes what his appetites cost, it's going to be back to the Cheez Whiz in a hurry. by CNB