What is that Sound?

As some of you know, bad table manners is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves, and I know exactly who to blame for it…my dear ole mother. As a kid she trained us early on to not smack our food (or gum), chew with your mouth closed, slurp any substance, and to not scrape your teeth on your utensils.

Once she whipped my sister and I into shape I’m sure she was very thankful. However it didn’t matter when we had friends over to eat with us. I will never forget this one time when our friend Erin Vader was scraping her teeth on her fork. My mom politely asked her stop, but then she did it again. Poor Erin didn’t even know what she was doing! I wonder if Erin scrapes her teeth now.

Flash forward to 2010…my mom and I just became friends (again) with an old friend via Facebook. She sent my mom the following message:

‘Hey Judy I remember when I was a part of a different co-op that you were in! LOL Hey I was in Spanish last week, smacking my gum, and Seniora Padilla made sure I the whole class understood that it is annoying! HA HA! Guess you're not the only one annoyed by that terrible habit! Gum is a great stress reliever and thinking tool...but I really do need to not smack it...sometimes I get really focused especially in Spanish! I thought you'd get a kick out of that!’

As you can see my mom’s influence is still remembered to this day! I’m wondering if any of my other friends have memories of her iron fisted eating rules.

I normally bite my tongue with I’m around a noisy eater, but all I have to do is look at John and he knows that I’m dieing inside. Ahhh the joys of becoming your parents as you get older.