Appetite

Mom and dad were always on us young Hockeys' case about this one thing. "You're going to ruin your appetite if you eat that." Or if we had already eaten something too close to a meal it was, "Now look what you've gone and done - ruined your appetite good." Sometimes, if we left the house too close to a meal we would get a good stern warning. "Dinner is in just an hour. Don't go ruining your appetite eating shit."

If we had been caught ruining our appetite we would say, "Nothing ruins my appetite. Remember that time I ate so many huckleberries I almost shit myself to death? I ate every pea on my plate not one hour later."

Or sometimes we would appeal to other sources of wisdom beyond our parents. "Mrs. Murphy said one little slice of pie would not spoil our appetite." This was sacrilege and blasphemy of the sort Satan Himself would have smoked a lot of good dope to imagine. "Mrs. Murphy is a fucking idiot. She was born a fucking idiot. Look at her boys. Little shitballs never have a proper appetite when they come over for our annual corn feed and drink 'til you drop."