I can remember when I was a child that I didn't like mashed potatoes.?  My father would make me
sit at the table until I ate the entire thing.?  I would play with it, mush it around and taste it every
time my father would pass by.?  I finally learned to spread them around my plate until they looked
like I had eaten most of them.

The year before my father passed away, I finally confessed a little secret.?  We had an old marble
box with a lid on it.?  Although it was designed to hold cigarettes, no one smoked in our house.? 
When no one was looking I would put my mash potatoes in the box and empty it later.

He laughed about it.?  Had he discovered it back then, I would have been in big trouble!

Oddly, whenever my Aunt Helen and Uncle Al would visit from New Jersey, he would tease me at dinner about eating them.

"Pass the mashed potatoes, but don't let Bobby have them," he'd say.

Of course that made me want them more.?  I had seconds, too.

Now, I absolutely love potatoes.?  Fry them, mash them, smash them, bake them, or anything
else you want and I'll eat them.

So what could possibly bring up that old memory?

Peas.

A friend of mine told me his granddaughter hates peas.?  It seems every time he is over her house for dinner they have peas.?  He finally caught on.?  It appears his daughter was hoping grandpa could get her to like peas.? 

"I was successful at it with my daughter," he told me.?  "But this one...this one is a real challenge!"

I shared my mashed potato story with him hoping it would inspire him to give it a try.

"No, I've given up on her," he said.?  Then he started to laugh.?  "She just doesn't like peas and I believe she never will."

The laughing increased to a point where he was almost in tears.

"What happen?" I asked.

"They just got a new puppy over the weekend.?  My granddaughter was stuck with the peas again at dinner.?  I begged her.?  I ate some myself in front of her.?  I did everything I could short of bribing her.?  I walked out of the room to tell my daughter it was useless.?  Agreeing that we should finally tell her she didn't have to eat peas any more, we returned to the kitchen and..." He couldn't finish.?  He started laughing again.

I sat patiently waiting for him to calm down.

"What happened?" I asked.

"We caught her feeding the peas to the puppy.?  He loved them.?  But my daughter was upset with her doing that," he continued.

"She went on about not feeding the? new puppy? "people food" and that because he was a puppy she might make him sick."

Calming down a bit for a moment, he looked at me and said,?  "When we asked her why she did it she simply said,?  "Mommy, it's okay to feed him this.?  These are "Pup Peas!"