My Son's Fear Factor Moment

My son,The M-60 Gunner in my fireteam, all 8 years old of him, will not eat veggies. Or fruit. at all...

So, when we are at the Olive Garden, celebrating my lovely daughter, the Radio Operator, and I order the Sampler Platter as appetizers for the family, I know that there is no way that I can get my son to eat any of the fried zucchini that is served with this part of our fantastic dinner.

The platter comes, and during the course of the rest of us eating this semi-gourmet plate of Italian delicasies, I take one of the zucchini pieces, cut it into fourths, and put a small sliver on a side plate.

"Bailey," says I, "if you eat this piece of fried zucchini, I will buy you an X-Box."

Now mind you, dear readers (as I know there are only a few out there, and my wife and brother are the majority of my fan base), I had not discussed this wager or challenge or whateverthehell you want to call it with The Boss; I merely knew that there was NO way that he was going to eat a piece of the squash family (green, at that); I had a smug expression on my face as I made this challenge to him. No a chance in hell.

Bailey, the non-vegetable/fruit eater, just acted as if Joe Rogan and the entire Fear Factor crew had just walked into the Olive Garden. Before HouseHold 6 (the Wife), who at this point stopped eating and stared at me with a "What the HELL are you doing!" look on her face, could say anything, he grabbed that piece of zucchini and threw it into his mouth, swallowed it and the opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out, just like on Fear Factor. He then asked, "Can we go and get it tonight?"

My bluff had thus been called, and I was screwed. Here we were, celebrating my daughter's birthday, and I wasgetting ready to spend a crapload of money on my son.

At this point, my daughter was rather perplexed. She said, "Can I get a game?" My boy is repeating his "can we get it tonight" question, and my wife is looking at me like I am the biggest moron ever to inhabit the planet.

"OK, OK, calm down," I say. I tell my son that he is not going to get off that easy, and we order him his own side of zucchini. My wife is still looking at me incredulously, and I am still stumped that he ate the G-ddamn zucchini. He had never fallen for that before, but then again, I never offered him an X-Box before. Oops.

So he eats most of the zucchini, as well as his meal, and I tell him that yes, we will get the game and each can get a game to play.

So, after dinner, we go and get it. X-Box, three games (I needed one too, come on...), and a godawful amountof money later, I learned never to bluff with my 8 (now 10) year-old.