Flashback Friday #79

My Brother, The Eating Machine

Hello all you fine readers out there (at least I hope you're out there). Climb aboard The Flashback Friday Express. There is plenty of seating in the dining car.

As you probably have figured out from the title of this post, My brother, Sir Gattabout, liked to put on the feedbag. You have heard stories about the appetites of teen-age boys. You have read the Zits comic strips. Let me tell you, my brother could put away the groceries. What's weird is that he was as thin as a rail.

There were many times where his appetite was bigger than he was, but alas, I'm only going to chronicle three because they stand out the most in my memory.

The first story may have been mentioned here before, so forgive me if I've told it before. It's been said that old people tend to repeat themselves. It's been said that old people tend to repeat themselves.

Mom was making Christmas cookies to raise a little extra money at Christmas time. She took orders from the folks she worked with, and set a date to bake, then deliver her homemade goodies. She had orders for about 100 dozen. My brother & I helped roll, cut & decorate the cookies. As they were coming out of the oven, Gattabout would eat 2 or 3 (at times more) from each batch. Armed with a large glass of milk (and more in the fridge), he was ready for battle. At the end of the baking session, Mom figured that he ate between 8-10 dozen cookies.

Our next story finds us in the kitchen again (imagine that). One of my cousins had spent the night with Gattabout. He was 2 years older, and a teen-age boy too. Mom decided to have French toast for breakfast. She would dip, fry then place the toast on a plate. They were eating it as fast as she was cooking it. She made them take a break so the rest of us could have some. By the time they were finished, Mom had gone through three loaves of bread.

But probably the greatest display of his hooverous ability was when he and a friend of his went to White Castle after getting their paychecks. They placed an order for 100 hamburgers (back then they were 25 cents each or five for $1). The clerk thought they were buying them for a party, and that they would want them to go. Nope. They were going to eat them all, right there in the restaurant. Setting them down on the table, they commenced to plow through them like a combine going through a wheat field. Each burger was gone in a maximum of two bites. People even sat nearby to watch. When all was said & done, Gattabout had eaten 54 of the "sliders" while his friend polished off the remaining 46.

Is there anything you could eat your weight in?