How to get your kids to hate fast food

(Yes, I'm posting again today. I am thinking my last post made sense to about 3% of the world so I figure I better share something that the 97% can enjoy too, hopefully or at the very least push the other post down the page !)

My kids do not like fast food, really. I cannot even get gas by the gas station next to the Golden Arches; the fries smell makes my daughters want to vomit (and they tell me this every time!).

School even offers a Chick-Fil-A day my kids refuse to eat--now they want the meal because everyone else has one but they also want me to still pack an entire lunch (future blog topic, trust me!). 

So how did they get this way? Well, I will admit since they were very tiny embryos in the womb, I would whisper the dangers of fast food, read pages from 'Fast Food Nation' as bed time stories and watch bits of Supersize Me during nursing sessions. But I can't take all the credit. Oh no, the daddy really scared them of fast food for life.

Daddy, you see, is a fast food lover. He would eat it everyday if he was not lucky enough to have me as a wife ;) but back to the 'event'. Miley was about three years old and Sara was just born. I was discussing food with a neighbor--I do this a lot! -- and she mentioned a friend who got e.coli from a burger at a nearby fast food place. Later that day, I informed the husband he needed to stop eating fast food meat for a while because I did not want to deal with e.coli, a toddler and a newborn all at once. I will admit I had some post pardum control issues.

So anyway, the very next day, I went to get my hair done and the husband watched to girls. When he picked me up, I saw wrappers from a fast food place in the car.

"Miley had no meat, "the husband said when I saw the crumbled wrapper.

"And you?"

"Well..."

"I swear if you get sick, you can drive yourself to the ER."

"Fine."

The car was quiet.

Later that evening, I gathered up the girls for an evening walk when the husband grabbed my arm from the couch and asked me to stay.

"I feel kind of funny," he paused. "In a really bad way. I think I'm getting sick."

I sighed; brought the girls back in and proceeded to entertain while the husband disappeared in the bathroom for a few hours.

I was getting ready to put the girls down when the husband called for me.

"Lisa," he cried. "I need to go to the ER. I am feeling like I am going to die."

So we loaded up the girls and headed for the ER. During this trip, I started to ask the husband why he would feel so bad. I answered the question myself and tore into my whole anti-fast food rant (yes, I have one).

At the ER, we waited in the main lobby while the husband was ushered in back. After three hours, I got restless watching crappy TV with a whiney toddler and a very cranky newborn and we headed in the back.

There Miley saw her daddy strapped to an IV and moaning on a stretcher. 

"Food poisoning. I think it was bad mayo on the burger, "he mumbled and then leaned over and vomited everywhere. There was a man right outside the curtain with a bucket so I am guessing this had already happened a few times.

Now the good wife would have wiped her husband's brow and tell him it's OK.

Instead in my very grouchy, sleep deprived state I turned to Miley and said ,"This is what happens when you eat fast food." 

Miley's eyes grew wider than saucers. She has not touched fast food since  and because she is the oldest, the younger kids have followed her path, unlike daddy but that's a post for another time.