The Pork Chop

by Sydney Parkn

I was a very stubborn kid. I have been known to have battles of will with adults that were supposed to be in charge of me. I lost most of them, but I won a few. The most notable one happened when I was 3 or 4 years old. Mom was going on one of her first dates since my parents divorced and my Pawpaw was tasked with watching my sister and me until she got home.

I don’t remember what happened for most of the day, but I remember being tired and just wanting to go to bed. We had already had our baths but we hadn’t had dinner yet. Pawpaw was a no-nonsense kind of man and made it clear that we were not allowed to go to bed until we had cleaned our plates. My sister had no problem doing this, but I was a notoriously picky eater.

Pawpaw made pork chops, and I couldn’t stand them. I’m still not fond of pork products, but I don’t have a burning hatred for them now like I did then. I had eaten everything else on my plate except the pork chop and I asked to go to bed. Pawpaw said no and tried his best to get me to eat. Thus the battle of wills had begun.

Pawpaw was also incredibly stubborn and I was the only one who rivaled him. We sat there for what seemed like hours. He tried his best to coerce me into eating, but I held my ground. He attempted compromise, limiting the amount I had to eat into a number of bites, but still I would not budge. Then he used the airplane method, using the fork to grab a bite and make zooming noises until it entered my mouth.

It almost did me in, too. I accepted the bite, but remembered my pride and refused to chew or swallow it. Pawpaw said “don’t you dare spit that out,” and I didn’t. I just sat and stared at him for a lengthy period of time with a chunk of pork in the side of my cheek. When my mom finally got home, she found us at the kitchen table, staring each other down. A fully grown adult man and a toddler battling it out.

After a while, he gave in and told me I could go get ready for bed. I got up from the table, hugged my mom goodnight, and left to go put on my pajamas. When Mom came in the next morning to get me ready for preschool, she saw a lump in my cheek. She woke me up and asked to see what was in my mouth, only to discover that chunk of pork that I never chewed, swallowed, or spit out.

When Pawpaw found out, he couldn’t believe it. I was so stubborn that I managed to keep the piece of pork chop in my mouth all night long, only spitting it out when my mom told me to. I had won this round.