For 10 months of the year, we convince ourselves that our families are no less normal than the next. Each winter, that reassuring fantasy comes crashing down at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
The holiday season brings out the best in family dysfunction, and nowhere are the quirks more evident than at a holiday meal. The last two months have reminded me just how wonderfully peculiar the eating habits of my family are.
Many holiday movies have focused on the amusing antics at the dinner table. The true entertainment, however, lies in the leftovers.
As the meal ends and the relatives leave, our fridge ends up packed with enough food to feed the Badger O-line for a month. With hearts of champions, my family consistently devours this mammoth quantity of food within a day or two. You are probably familiar with this effect'one single meal turns into three days of incessant consumption. It's as if an ancient survival instinct kicks in, telling us, 'If there's food, EAT IT!'
While the leftover-grazing phenomenon is not unique to the Storey household, I have concluded that my family spends the other 10 months of the year in training for this holiday gluttony. I have named our training regimen the '4-o'clock binge.'
Around this time each day, my family simply cannot stave off hunger until dinner time. A small snack might do the trick, but we pull out all the stops. The four of us congregate in the kitchen, piling nearly every snack item in our cabinets onto the counter.
Anything from cookies to cereal to frozen vegetables will be scarfed by the ravenous Storey family. But this tradition would not be complete without the individual eccentricities of my family members.
As the 'man of the house,' my dad leads the way in unusual eating habits. For him, nutritional information would be best listed in handfuls, as this is how he demolishes his snack of choice.
There is little chewing involved (though we have yet to actually use the Heimlich), and I often wonder if he even tastes the food. Entire bags of chips have mysteriously disappeared, with only scattered crumbs around his favorite chair as a clue.
The holiday season is not the only time for gift-giving at my house, where the sharing of a newly-discovered snack food qualifies as virtuous and heartfelt. Sadly, my sister, Jenna, is often left out of the communal munching, refusing to try anything that is offered.
This is because Jenna is a craver. Once a craving has hit, there is no other food which will satisfy her. But while many of us crave foods, Jenna's cravings are hardly your standard mint-chocolate-chip ice cream variety. Among her favorites are rice, peanut butter (straight up!) and frozen corn. No, she does not want it fresh on the cob or buttery and warm. Only the icy niblets will hit the spot.
My mom, on the other hand, will try anything and everything that you put in front of her. Unfortunately, letting her try something you like is quite risky'it may be all gone before you know it. Nevertheless, food and eating are the main bonds which I share with my mom.
Last but not least, I must confess that I am utterly obsessed with food. From the time I wake up to my last thoughts before sleep, I contemplate my next snack or meal. I have more oddities in my eating habits than my entire family combined, and those are just the ones of which I am aware.
Unhealthy, you ask? Perhaps. But who among us does not have some strange food addiction? Hopefully my passion for food will inspire the food freak in all of you.
