Dear SJ:  I’m 8 years old. My parents are giving me really bad food and I don’t like it. Like mushrooms and onion soup and stale bread and whole milk. They say it’s good for me, but I don’t believe them. I think they are lying. Should I believe them? How do I get them to give me more of the things my friends have that I like, like pizza and macaroni and cheese and hot dogs?

HANGRY IN HARRISBURG

Answer:
 I’m so glad you asked this, HANGRY. I’ll go out on a limb and say that you’re likely not the only one wondering the same thing.

Who gives a fuck whether you eat your vegetables, right? It’s not like that has any bearing whatsoever on your future life. We all know obesity comes from just eating too much, so I’m sure you’ll figure that out on your own in a couple of decades and be just fine. [Yes, I wrote “fuck” to an 8-year-old. I’m sure he knows that word already. I mean, the kid goes to public school, so he’s probably had that on his spelling list for 2 years. And even if not, you think that pandering YouTuber trying to get past the last level of Super Mario Clitlicker really gives a flying one how old or innocent his audience’s ears are?]

Anyway, here’s what you have to do. You probably don’t remember it, but a few years ago, there was a sure-fire way for you to get any goddamned thing you wanted. It’s called a “temper tantrum”, and by age 2 you had mastered it.

When you want something, just start shouting the thing you want really, really loudly, over and over at the top of your lungs. Don’t bother asking, just demand from the first offense. When they put down a bowl of rice and veggies, but you want pizza, it goes like this: PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA! Don’t stop till you get it. Or pass out trying. If that happens, take a lesson from your future college self: wake up, throw up, and get right back at it.

Want mac & cheese? That’s easy. MAC-AN-CHEE! MAC-AN-CHEE! MAC-AN-CHEE! MAC-AN-CHEE! MAC-AN-CHEE! You didn’t mention popsicles, but what fart-sniffing booger-eater like yourself doesn’t want one every day? PA-SICKLE! PA-SICKLE! PA-SICKLE!

Accentuate your demands by demonstrating your complete contempt for what they’ve already provided. Dump whatever swill they tried to pass off as food on the floor. Stale bread? Wipe your ass with it and dump it on their plate. Onion soup? Looks great in their bed. Mushrooms? Try this: put one in your mouth, swirl it around to get it good and slobbery, then just drool it right into Mom’s purse. Shouldn’t take more than two or three of these incidents to train them in the new order of things.

And remember: when they try to object, you’ve got leverage. They’ll try to say something like “Now, HANGRY, stop misbehaving or we’ll give you a spanking.” Your best, first, and only response is simple, since you’re now old enough to read a phone book and, I presume, have achieved the hamster-level IQ to use a phone: “Do it and I call Child Protective Services on your lazy asses, you bastards. Now where’s my raspberry Ring Pop?”