Dissing the Dinner

My much-maligned meal.

I made a cold cabbage salad for dinner tonight. (Among other things Stacy made.) As soon as it was served L looked up at me and said, "Do I have to eat this garbage?"

I gave her a look far chillier than the salad.

"What is this called?" she asked coyly.

"Cabbage." My reply was curt.

"Oh, I thought it was called garbage. Ha ha."

Her face was a beatific veneer of innocence, with just a hint of a subdermal smirk that told me her sense of sarcasm was a lot further developed than she wanted me to know.

From then on, through out the meal, L decided it was particularly important to be much more of a mother hen to N than usual: "N, eat your garbage! ...Oh, I mean cabbage."