Don't take your teenager to the health food store

I recently discovered a new mommy commandment. I had just gotten Jesse, the 14 year old, from school and Good Earth was on the way home, and I didn't want to have to battle traffic going home to drop him off and then going back, so I broke my rule and took the child to the store. You should know, I do not like to take ANY child to ANY store. This would be why this child had no idea that I buy some of the food he crams into his very large mouth from stores like Good Earth and The Sunflower Market. THE HORROR!!!

So within seconds of entering the store, he asked loudly, "What IS that SMELL?" I asked him to please keep his voice down and don't embarrass me. Have I mentioned that this particular child is mother-deaf? Well, he is.

I had to get some vitamins, so we went to the back of the store to look for them. Now this area of the store seemed to intrigue and revolt him at the same time. There were some elderly people who were talking to a salesman about a supplement to help with a severe problem with trapped gas and how long it would take for them to find some relief. Jesse, who laughs like a hyena, began to laugh. So I tried to move the mammoth child quickly out of the way, and went to the next aisle over. This was a mistake as it happened to be the section for men with certain problems involving their plumbing, and he called me a pervert.

I suggested that he go find out where the bathroom was for me, and when he returned he had a hand full of nuts, and an awful look on his face. He asked me what was wrong with these nuts? I was trying to read something and I told him I didn't know. He ate another one, and suggested, (not in these words) that the old people had taken the pills and had relieved themselves on the nuts. So I looked at them and told him he was eating raw cashews, that they hadn't been cooked. So he left, and came back with different nuts. My brain kicked in at that point, and I asked him where he got them and he said, "They have these big bins in a room back there, so I can taste this stuff so you won't buy it. What ARE these?"

So I figured today was not the day to see which supplement I should take so I would not get anymore headaches, because I had now found the cause of them. As we walked back through the store he made many comments about whether or not the people in this store ever ate, cuz they look sick, and am I trying to kill him with this food?

Then I made the grave mistake of walking down the chip aisle in an attempt to get him away from the stand where they were making wheat grass juice, as I already know his opinion on this matter, he calls it cow ass juice. I figured that the whole store did not need to know that he felt very strongly that only cows should be eating grass. There was an incident at Jamba Juice, which I would rather forget. But I had forgotten that he had even stronger feeling about the integrity of the potato. He looked around and said, "OK, now heres the stuff!!", and grabbed a bag of rice chips. He looked at the label, and said ewwww. Grabbed one with a potato on the front, and was absolutely shocked at what he read. He then proceeded to yell,

"MOM!!! They disgraced the chips!!!! There's no oil in them, they popped a potato!! How could they pop the potato?"

Now people were staring. I needed to get out. So I told him to go get a drink, threw the cereal and juice in the basket, and ran for the check out. He asked the clerk what is wrong with their gum, and why they pop the potato, and I sent him out to the car with his drink. But he opened it in front of the doors outside and spit it on the ground, and loudly stated,

"Can't you even leave the root beer alone? What is wrong with this?"

I told the check out lady that he was off his meds, and pulled my sunglasses down, realizing that I would no longer be welcome at Good Earth again.

When we got into the car, he told me that going there is why I am sick. For the love of god they have people in there that can't even fart. There was reference to not breaking wind, blowing dust, and then I turned the radio up. Then he showed me how very adept at releasing gas he was, all the while reading the back of the root beer bottle, and asking my what in Gods name is sasparilla. Lovely.

He is now refusing to eat the cereal he has been eating for a year, as he read the label, and now knows that the marshmallows in it are colored with beet juice and blueberry juice, and he would rather have blue lake #5.

Mommy Commandment: NEVER TAKE A TEENAGER TO A HEALTH FOOD STORE.

Jesse-ism: THEY DISGRACED THE CHIPS!!!!