I had a sudden inspiration that I could convince my
granddaughter to try mustard on her ice cream. Sure, it’s a devious trick to
play on a child. And it probably proves that I’m a terrible person and an unfit
grandfather. Okay, good points.
But look at it from my perspective: I doubt that I can
really fool Madalyn about anything for too much longer. She’s pretty smart, and
is already kind of “on to me.” She has begun to respond to my many ideas with
kind-hearted skepticism. (“Oh, Papa…”)
That’s where the mustard-on-ice cream started. She didn’t
believe me at first. I said things like, “Hey, you should try some of this
mustard on your ice cream. It’s the bomb. You’ll love it!” She smiled politely,
but wasn’t buying it.
And by the way, just so you’ll know what kind of uphill
battle I have to fight, my wife is no help in times like this. In fact she
refuses to play along, even though she knows this would bolster my self-esteem
and contribute to the overall hilarity of our family. But no. (Pray for her…)
Anyhow, I kept talking, extolling the virtues of a little
yellow mustard on soft-serve. Finally, to make my point, I tore the corner off
one of those little packets we got with the cheeseburger, and dolloped some on
the ice cream in my spoon. “See,” I said. “Deee-LISH-us,” I pronounced.
Actually, it wasn’t delicious, but it wasn’t that bad. You see all kinds of ice
cream flavors these days – horseradish and kumquat, fried green tomato and
prosciutto, and so forth, so why not chocolate/vanilla swirl with mustard?
So Madalyn consented to try it. I put a daub on her ice
cream, and she rolled it around in her mouth with a thoughtful expression.
“It’s pretty good,” she said. Mission
accomplished! We both tried a second spoonful. Really good, we agreed.
What would have made it perfect is if we could have
persuaded Nana to try it. But of course, as I said earlier, not open to new experiences.
So anyway, I told you that story so I could tell about
something I did which was a lot worse.
When I was in junior high school (yes, there was “junior high school” in Colonial
America, thank you very much), I went camping with my friends Will and James. I
say camping, but it was actually the back pasture of my parents’ farm. But though
we were only a couple miles away from my house, it definitely felt like the
wilderness.
I can’t remember whose idea it was – James’ or mine – but
one of us had the brainstorm of convincing Will that the rabbit droppings we
found back under the trees were actually chocolate covered raisins. In
hindsight, I suppose this was a pretty tough sell. It seems unlikely that
anybody with any of the five major senses operational could have been
convinced.
But once we had set upon our course of deception we really got into it. No one could have been more sincere or pure-hearted than we
were as we appealed to Will to just try the chocolate covered raisins.
Will had three brothers so he was used to being conned. He
smiled and declined to partake. We tried everything. We explained the unusual
texture of the “raisins,” and the fact that there were so many scattered under
the bushes. Will remained resolute.
Finally James made the ultimate sacrifice – he popped a few
“raisins” into his mouth, chewed them up, and then whispered to me, “They’re
not that bad.” That’s the point when Will, with a triumphant look on his face,
began to laugh.
I think there is a spiritual moral to this last story: Even
your friends may try to get you to swallow what is only a very poor substitute
for the real deal. The surest defense against being conned is to be intimately
acquainted with the real thing. David said, Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8). When you know the truth, when you believe the true gospel, when you
belong to the real Jesus of Scripture, then everything else may be counted –
and this is the word St. Paul chose for it – dung (Philippians 3:8, KJV).
As for mustard on ice cream. Hey, it’s pretty good. You
should try it.
