The Mint Jelly Incident

The Byran family consitited of three. Frank the father. Sarah the mother, and little Davey as their only child of eight.

On a Friday night, they all sat around the dinner table for that evenings meal like they had done hundreds of times in the past.

And tonight, there will be some of the same situtations as also in the pass.

Pork chops, potatoes, peas and carrots and salad was on the menu.

Frank sat at the table first to admire the spread as did little Davey who came in next.

Sarah brought in the icetea and sat down to join them.

As Sarah filled little Davey's plate with food, her husband, Frank noticed something was not just right. Just some minor thing out of the ordinary.

 "Sarah...where's the mint jelly?"

"Oh...I'm sorry Frank. I thought that we had some in the fridge. I will get some when we go shopping tomarrow."

Frank sat there looking at his full plate of food that his wife made. Salad off to the side in a bowl.

"Come on Sarah, you know I can't eat porkchops without mint jelly!"

"Well, maybe just this once you can."

As the banter between his parents went on, little Davey was shoveling the food in his mouth because he knew what was coming next.

Frank pulled out his wallet and threw a five dollar bill in his son's direction.

"Davey, stop eating and take this money and head down to the store and get some mint jelly. Your mom will put our dinners in the oven to keep warm til you get back."

Now, this wasn't the first time that this had happened. You see, little Davey at the age of eight was tall for his age, but also a bit on the thin side. 

It was a common thing around mealtime for him not to be able to complete a full meal. He would have to stop and go to the store for some condiment or other.

Not enough catsup for the hamburgers? Davey head to the store.

Mustard for the hotdogs or bratwurst, Davey head to the store.

Maple syrup for the pancakes, duck sauce for the Chinese food, grape jelly for the toast, salad dressing, pickles, sugar, salt, etc...Davey would head to the store.

Before little Davey picked up the money, he plowed a large amount of potatoes into his mouth for the calories he would need for the two block walk to the store.

At the store. little Davey went to the aisle where all the jellies were kept.

Grape, strawberry, orange marmalade, apricot, boysenberry, apple butter, but no mint jelly.

He walked to the counter where an eighteen year old woman was looking at her phone.

"Do you have any mint jelly?"

Looking up from her phone, she paused the Tik Tok video of some guy sticking golf balls up his ass.

"Did you look in the jelly section kid?"

"Yes, but there is none there."

"Then we don't have any."

She went back to watching the Tik Tok video wondering if the guy was going to shoot the golf balls out of his ass like a cannon.

He did.

A new social media trend is born.

Back at the house, his father was salivating, waiting in antisipation for that mint jelly and porkchop to mix in his mouth.

 "Well...did you get it?"

Little Davey gave back the money to his father and told them they didn't have any.

Sarah brought the plates from the oven back to table.

"Eat up Davey, eat up."

He didn't need any prodding. He was hungry.

Frank on the other had was not as happy.

Yes, he choked down his porkchops adding more potatoes with each bite.

He tried a little French dressing on them, but it didn't help.

"How can you not remember to get the mint jelly." he whined.

"Look, I work too, and I come home to cook a nice dinner. I'm sorry if I spoiled your meal Frank!"

Little Davey kept his head down and ate his food while his dad wasn't pleased with the lack of mint jelly.

Little Davey felt his mother anger, or sadness after having worked and then make a nice dinner on a chilly night.

Now, little Davey thought about saying something nice to his mom, you know, to try and make her feel better.

"Hey mom, these porkchops are really banging. You did a good job, thanks."

 Now...that's what he should have said.

But these are the words that came ouot of his mouth.

"JESUS FUCKIN CHRIST DAD! CAN'T YOU EAT THE GODDAMN PORKCHOPS WITHOUT MINT JELLY FOR JUST ONE FUCKIN NIGHT!!?"

The silence was deafening in the room.

Little Davey waiting for a scolding or a smack from one or both of his parents. But there was none.

They just both looked at him, their mouths slightly opened.

A pea fell out of his father's mouth.

Little Davey picked up his plate and glass of icetea and headed towards his bedroom.

He didn't hear his parents say a word. Just the scraping of the utensils on the plates and the sounds of eating.

About an hour later, he came out of his room and brought his dish and galss to the kitchen.

He stopped by the livingroom enterance and saw his dad sitting on the couch on his laptop.

His dad gave him a look then went back to his laptop.

Bringing the plate and glass to the sink, his mother took them without saying a word.

He felt a quick retreat was a good plan.

In his room, he thought on what his parents were thinking. What diabolical punishment was waiting him. 

"Shit? They didn't yell at me or nothing. They got something up their sleeves and I'm in for it.

Next day being Saturday, little Davey felt that after his parents had slept on it, he would find out his punishment.

But nothing.

They had breakfast, in quiet fashion.

He didn't have to leave his meal halfway to get something at the store.

With the breakfast dishes washed and put away, Sarah told him that she and his dad were going out for awhile and for him to stay in the house, or at least the yard only.

As they drove down the driveway and down the street, he wonder what was up.

"Are they running away. they don't want to be with me anymore? Maybe go to a military recruiter and have me join the army or marines at eight?" he was thinking.

Twenty minutes later he gets a text on his phone saying that they will be back in the hour.

"Then what!?" he thought.

When his parents came home, he saw that there were bags of groceries in the car.

"Oh... they just went food shopping."

When his father came into the house, he told him to go and get the last bag from the car. 

"It might be a little heavy, so use two hands."

When little Davey went to the car to get the bag, it was curious on why he need two hands to carry it.

He opened the bag to see inside.

In the bag he saw condiments, nothing but condiments, in all different colors.

Red for catsup, white for mayonniase, maple for maple syrup, dark brown and yellow for the mustard, two types of mustard.

All in large family size.

And there on the top of the bag was the green. The green mint color, the color of the fields of the Emerald Isle herself, a baseball field on a warm summers evening... mint jelly.

As little Davey looked at the house on his way up the front walk, carrying the bag of condiments with two hands as if it was a newborn baby,he thought to himself, "Now...about that raise in my allowance!"