‘Mommy, I need another amuse-bouche!’

My name is Jill, and my kids are addicted to samples.

Hooked, I tell you. And not just at stores.

It’s gotten so bad that The Elder will send me back a plate filled

with cheese and fruit so that I can cut up the cheese into smaller

squares. So that I may please him.

And then, it’s sent back once again, not because of the shoddy, surly

service from the mom with an attitude (who never gets tipped, by the

way). No, the plate gets sent back again so they can have little

toothpicks inserted into the cheese, “like at Metwopolitan Market.”

And I actually do it, because I want them to get calcium that much.

Yes, I arm them with little pointed sticks.

So far, there have been no injuries, but I expect there could be if

the cheese is ever not up to snuff. And don’t even get The Elder

started on his need for constant kalamata olive tapenade, which he mysteriously used to refer to as “avatar.”

If we’re out of that olive stuff, there will be trouble, comparable to the “I want real sushi!” riot in San Francisco back in ’10.

Man, I want my waitress wages. –Jillian O’Connor



