'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'

So, as many of you know, due to my inability to stop talking ever, my brother is on a strict diet set forth by a nutritionist my mother was ordered to see
.

I had bought myself some organic strawberry jam, the manufacturer was Dickinson's because I only buy jam by manufactures with 2 or more syllables in their names. If there is one thing I love in this world it is a jam. I bought this for me, considering it's high sugar content, I hid it. I hid it because that's the only way anyone in my family gets to eat.

We have to literally hide food from one another. We are like wild beasts. If we were the Donner party, we'd have ate each other after about 10 hours.

So, I come home yesterday, and open up the fridge only to find that NOT ONLY had my jam been found, IT WAS GONE. There were a few droplets of jam left, but nothing you could make a PB and J out of. Approximately 12 hours had passed from the time I purchased the jar of jam, to the period of time it was completely consumed.

Mike was sitting on his recliner, my mom was sitting on the couch doing her crossword, and Alana was trying to make pasta sauce in the microwave.

I held up the jar of jam and decried "WHO ATE ALL OF THIS?!?!" "THIS IS AN ENTIRE JAR, GONE!!"

My mom said in a an aggravated tone, "Oh! Calm down Andrea."

After a lot more yelling on my part Mike informed me that he had in fact ate all of the jam on pieces of Pumpernickel bread.

Finally, the pasta sauce was ready from the microwave, and dinner was served.

I don't eat pasta if I can help it, I especially don't eat pasta with various large chunks of meat in it. So I had made myself some maltomeal. One because I prefer to relive my childhood as much as I possibly can, and two, because it's delicious and it tastes like starshine and rainbows.I sat down at the table with my bowl of maltomeal (Maple and Brown sugar to be exact) and commenced consumption.

My family doesn't understand "portion control" we more-or-less put as much food on the plate as we possibly can. So my mom, sister and brother LOAD UP on pasta. Pasta and meat sauce, that was it...no salad, no veggie. Just carbs.

My brother mike went for a second helping of pasta to which I said:

"No Mike! That's enough!"

My mom replied, "Andrea come on, a little bit more is fine."

I responded with . . ."Mom, it's too many carbs, he already ate a jar of jelly."

Mom retorted "Well, this is wheat pasta anyway and not-to-mention, what you're eating has a lot of carbs too! I checked the box this morning."

I came back with, "Well I'm not on the verge of diabetes either, Am I mom?!"

This really started the night off with a bang.

Later on that same evening:

I was back from the gym and I get a hankerin', a hankerin' for some peanut butter. My mother hides the peanut butter from me often. By often, I mean EVERY TIME SHE BUYS IT.

Now, here's the thing. I am not the only one that eats the peanut butter. In fact, if you will refer to figure 1.1 (which I have attached to this e-mail) you will find a visual rendering of the average consumption by various family members.

So my sister was pulling down various bowls that we had stored, and she finds the peanut butter. And my mom YELLS AT HER. 


Because I was standing right there, and now I know where the peanut butter is.

Clearly, given my good fortune on this day, I made myself a peanut butter sandwich.

My brother ( who was watching me from his recliner, said "Mom look at what she is doing.!"

My mom returns, "I can't, I have tried to tell her."

As if I am in the kitchen shooting up.

I decided to go into the family room and eat my delicious HALF sandwich of peanut butter in front of her. I chewed it slowly, taking pleasure in each delicious bite.

My mother grew more and more frustrated. She refused to speak with me the rest of the night.