A dark day it was when mother’s milk gave way to cursed Enfamil, but the sweetness of the early days softened somewhat the blow of the ill-powdered bottle. I had heard promising stories of the “cereal phase,” so I gamely put up with the foul formula in anticipation of fare more suitable to my discriminating palate.
Imagine my disappointment when “cereal” turned out to be a not too distant cousin of Quikrete, a rice-based paste more suitable as mortar between bricks than as nourishment for a presumably cherished addition to the family. This foul substance offers no snap, no crackle, and certainly no pop; it simply oozes lazily from sandpaper dry to muddy mush, a ladled slop instantly recognizable to your average unfortunate Western tourist who has spent any number of meals in a Turkish penitentiary awaiting trial.
Compounding the problem and intensifying the outrage, I began to notice other denizens of my abode enjoying complex grains of admirable weight, delectable crunch, and robust flavor. Even the primitive, somnolent fur beast consumes with relish a bowl of audibly crunchy, bison flavored grains each morning and afternoon. At least he recognizes my isolation from the pack’s foodstuffs and occasionally licks my face and belches in my direction after finishing off his allotted portion. He is a kind-hearted if admittedly disgusting beast.
One might surmise that I would grow accustomed to shoddy treatment at the hands of the giants, that I would learn to accept my bland diet as a thinly-veiled nutritional penalty for depriving them of sleep, of silence, of dinners out, and of golf. I have not! I will not! This baby rages coolly beneath a smiling, calculating exterior!
By far the worst part is the taunting method with which they carry out their torture. I could almost stomach the outrageous treatment when under the foolish impression that mushed rice was the only cereal conveniently available, but during a recent arm ride through the house I was greeted by the Good Capn smiling out of the partially opened pantry!
It’s not that the tall ones are too lazy or absent-minded to purchase appropriate foodstuffs; they have it and they’re keeping it from me! Their offense is not mere incompetence; it is sadistic treachery on a level unfathomable for first time parents!
I take some consolation in the fact that the Good Capn perches on but the second pantry shelf, a shelf that I will soon be able to reach as these chubby infant legs learn to support standing upright and bipedal motion. Each day I kick my father harder when he holds me and each day I wave my legs wildly when my mother attempts to dress me, an aggressive training regimen that should pay dividends in the months to come…
Damn! Damn! Damn! I must leave off this ledger for now. It appears that the tall ones have just bought me mushed apples (no doubt for their amusement), and this new outrage will require its own separate entry.