The World According to Robert  

LIVING WITH MY COUSIN SAL MANILLA 

AS YOU GET OLDER THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD BOWEL MOVEMENT IS 

THE NUMBER ONE CONCERN IN MOST ADULTS LIVES. SEX IS GREAT BUT A 

GOOD BM BRIGHTENS UP THE WHOLE DAY 

    As a kid in Brooklyn we grew up always hearing our parents saying that 

there are starving children somewhere in the world so we had to eat 

everything on our plates. That would have been fine if there was something 

edible on my plate to eat. I hated the way my Mom cooked. Now mind you 

she wasn’t just a bad cook but she could cook the taste out of anything. Later 

on in life I was astounded to find that food actually had taste. My big thing is 

consistency. Everything my Mom made you could eat without teeth. I 

remember how the menu went and it was pretty much the same every week for 

15 years of my life. The only thing that changed was the type of vegetable. 

Substitute cauliflower for lentils or squash. Didn’t matter to me I was not 

chewing that crap. Minimal amount of time in my mouth. Spoon to throat never 

touching the tongue. 

     Monday was macaroni and cauliflower, Tuesday was macaroni and 

broccoli, Wednesday was macaroni and peas (my nemesis), Thursday was 

macaroni and tomato sauce (we called it macaroni and gravy), Friday was 

macaroni and any fish she could find, Saturday was steak and Sunday was 

macaroni and gravy. The only days I chewed my food was Thursday, Saturday 

and Sunday. The rest of the days I swallowed the rigatoni, gnocchi and 

vegetables whole. I love her dearly but Jeez I could swallow a Thunderbird by 

the time I turned 10. I could have been a very popular girl. As a kid I had a 

very disruptive digestive system. I friggin wonder why. 

    Well I did start to wonder about the many times I had to run into the 

bathroom from playing outside with exploding diarrhea. I know everyone at 

one time or another has had that feeling of “Oh my God somethings not right.” 

I thought it was just the normal growing up experience. Like the pains I used to 

get in my joints. Growing pains. Yeah. 

    I had always thought about how I swallowed everything whole but that 

didn’t really fit together. So I sat down with my Mom, she still is talking to me 

after our shaving conversation, and we discussed my temperamental anal 

expulsions and she told me something I totally forgot about. Freakin turtles. I 

always had turtles when I was growing up. Those cute little green turtles. I must 

have had 20 of them. Actually they all were called Chipper after the middle 

son in My Three Sons but that’s irrelevant. It’s my ass we’re talking about. 

    So here I was with these cute little green turtles and I would hold them and 

play with them and then go have a fluff-n-nutter sandwich. Hmmm. Those little 

bastards gave me salmonella. I had blamed my Mom all these years for being 

a terrible cook, which she still is, and all the time it was my little friends giving 

me an explosive chocolate starfish. Let me tell you I scoff at e-coli now. Food 

poisoning means nothing to me. Bring it on. I had so many bouts of salmonella 

that I’m impervious to any bacteria. 

    I’m ordering a BLT with extra tomato’s. Ha