My Little Tree-Hugger

“I could eat a forest.”

My mother has often repeated a saying to express her state of hunger. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse,” she’d say after arriving home with my two brothers and me from the beach with Boogie boards, swim fins, toys and wet towels, an effort that involved taking two rather infrequent buses, a rarity in Los Angeles, the land of the car.

The exclamation of such a state of starvation caught on.

So the other day as I walked home with my wife and three children from the beach in Pinamar to our house in the pine trees, I said it out loud. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

My eldest daughter laughed at the connotation.

“Yeah,” the six-year-old said, still chuckling. “I’m so hungry I could eat a tree. Two trees. All of the trees. The whole forest.”

She paused for a second to gaze at the pine trees around us, with the branches and needles fluttering in the wind under the blue sky and warm sun.

“But then we wouldn’t have any more trees and that wouldn’t be good. We have to help the planet,” she said.

So we had big bowls of soup and large pieces of bread and butter and then popcorn while watching a DVD, followed by milky tea.

The trees still standing and the horses are off the hook.




More stories on: Things Funny (and Sometimes Gross)
{ 4 comments… add one }
  • Landscaping Ideas July 25, 2009, 7:48 am

    I am hungry, I want to eat my computer….LOL. Your kid is cute, isn't she…

  • clara July 27, 2009, 5:34 pm

    Jajaja
    El pan con manteca es mucho más rico que un pino. ¡Y más blandito!

  • Charles Newbery July 27, 2009, 9:16 pm

    Kids come out with all sorts. They're telling me now to watch out for dragons!

  • Charles Newbery July 27, 2009, 9:17 pm

    Ah, y por supuesto pan y manteca gana!

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