“Honey. She’s not eating it.” says Zsuzsa “Why doesn’t she like my cooking? What’s wrong with it?”
I take another spoonful of Zsuzsa’s lentil soup and shrug.
“Virsli!” bellows Mila, which is Hungarian for ‘frankfurter sausage’.
“Should I get her a virsli?” I ask.
“No honey.” replies Zsuzsa. “I’ve spent ages making this. She needs to eat it.”
“Virsli! Virsli! VIRSLI!” demands Mila, with increasing fervour.
Virsli, or frankfurter sausages are a particular favourite of Mila’s. In fact, it’s a borderline obsession. She can smash through a load of them in a small amount of time. She’s surely a future frankfurter eating world champion in the making.
I stare at my little cub, stubbornly refusing her lentil soup and my mind begins to drift.
What if my little girl’s love of sausages spirals out of control? What if she decides to refuse everything else and only ever eats frankfurter sausages?! And it’s not just her we have to worry about now. Soon she’s going to be a role model for another tiny pet human. What if she’s a bad influence on her sister and convinces her that she should only eat frankfurter sausages as well?
Now this may sound extreme, but I remember watching an episode of Freaky Eaters and seeing a man who only ever ate cheese that he scooped up with Hula Hoop crisps! Also, I have a friend who went to university with a guy who only ate Ready Brek as it was all his parents gave him as a baby. He (astonishingly) was getting married and had to see a psychologist to wean him off Ready Brek so that he didn’t eat Ready Brek on his wedding day! He was around thirty years of age and had yet to be weaned! What if I’m the man who raises two women who only eat frankfurter sausages!
I gasp.
WHAT IF THEY’RE KNOWN AS THE SAUSAGE SISTERS!?
As the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius no doubt once said “Can one truly be happy if all one eats is sausage”?
My girls might be able to get through school, as a sausage only diet would probably make them hefty units who could handle themselves in hand to hand combat. And university should be circumnavigate-able, as uni students eat any old shit thrown at them (I lived off cheese and onion pasties for three years) so they will be able to blend in like chameleons. But then comes working life! What if there’s a client lunch and they go to a restaurant that doesn’t sell frankfurter sausages!? The poor lambs would have to try and pretend to eat their meals by hiding the food when the other diners aren’t looking! It’d be like the episode of Mr Bean when he’s trying to hide his steak tartare in flower pots!
And how will they find partners? There’s a good reason that there’s no Mrs Bean. They’d probably start smelling of sausage! When they get nervous they’d probably start sweating sausage juice! And speed dating would prove to be a challenge if they sweated sausage juice. They’d probably need to take valium to calm their nerves and stop the sausage sweats, but that in itself would be a problem for speed dating. They’d come over all aloof.
No, they’d probably have to settle for marrying people who smell of meat as well. Butchers! They’d both have to marry butchers and their scent would probably attract dogs! Dogs love sausages don’t they? And swimming in places like Australia would be out of the question as I bet sharks love a bit of sausage! The American forests would also be a ‘no go zone’. They’d be smothered with bears! JESUS CHRIST! The poor girls will have to go to places like Rhyl for holiday!
Then how would they properly wean my grandchildren? They’d probably just feed them sausages! This could be the start of a whole new sub-species of human! Zsuzsa and I could unwittingly end up becoming Adam and Eve characters for sausage people.
“Honey! HONEY!” says Zsuzsa, causing me to snap out of my sausage fuelled nightmare. “What’s up? You looked miles away. What were you thinking about?”
“Oh, nothing.” I reply, before forcefully attempting to feed my daughter some lentil sou