Many moons ago my wife and son met me for lunch. He was just getting good at toddling on his own. Since it was a beautiful summer day, we decided to eat outside under an arbor of wisteria where a few cement picnic tables were located. We had no sooner put him down when he toddled over to a cement bench, picked up a bird turd, shoved it in his mouth and swallowed. After a moment exchanging horrified glances, the wife and I decided that the only logical course of action would be to take him to the pediatrician or hospital if he exhibited symptom(s) of unwellness. Otherwise, just…be disgusted.
He was none the worse for the experience. At least it was organic, right?
My wife was bathing my daughter while we were home visiting the folks for the holidays this past week, and popped a turd into her mouth before my wife realized she’d pooped in the bathtub.
I’ve eaten ants (when I was a kid, but well past the normal age of kids-eating-strange things). I wanted to be the next Jane Goodall, see, and I had read about how she tried eating termites once because she saw the chimpanzees do it, and I guess ants were the closest thing available. Um. It seemed to make sense at the time…
Only thing I personally remember as a kid is eating dog food, because why not? Dogs seem to love it, so maybe it’s tasty? (Nope.)
As an adult - not gross-tasting, but back to pet food again: I recently ate a tiny food pellet, made from timothy hay. Again, our rabbits react to these like they’re jonesing for a hit of some good stuff, so once again, what the hell. (Plus people make “rabbit food” jokes WRT me being a vegetarian anyway.) Bland as fuck. Not even really “grassy” tasting. Rabbits must have amazingly well-tuned palates or something, or somehow they know the pellets are the distilled-down essence of the hay they get daily? I don’t get the appeal.
I ate a fuzzy caterpillar once in 2nd grade on a dare.
As an adult, well, I was going to the grocery for a couple of things, and my 5 yr. old niece wanted to go with. Poor little barefoot thing (summer vacation), we were walking and it was further away than I thought, but she was a trooper. So I had my debit card and I think $4. Bought my stuff, then she saw the ice cream store next door and wanted a cone. And they only took cash. So I had enough for 1 cone for her.
We walk outside, and she licks her cone, and you guessed it, the ice cream ball fell off. She was so sad, and I said do you really still want it? Yes, all quivering lip and welling eyes. I picked up the ice cream, chomped the sandy gravel off the side, and plopped it back on the cone. (I did spit it out)
Sometime when I was 8 or 9 I ate some dirt. Pure, grade A top soil. What can I say? I had been dared, and I’ll be damned if I was going to back down. IIRC, one other child ate the dirt as well.
Worst thing was the “contrast media” I had for a CAT scan in 2005. I was told it was “banana” flavored. On what planet? Maybe some methane-breathing alien on a moon of Jupiter would think that that was “banana”.
My daughter. My wife usually doesn’t randomly pop things in her mouth she finds floating in the bathtub when bathing my daughter. Also, in case it wasn’t clear, my wife suddenly realized that my daughter had pooped in the bathtub, and did not suddenly realize that she herself had pooped in my daughter’s bathtub.
