DON’T YUCK MY YUM!
Elizabeth Willis Barrett……….January 2022
How do tastebuds work? Does anybody know? I guess I could Google it. But if I did, sure enough some other topic would show up and I’d be rabbit-holing on Google for the rest of the day. Given that I haven’t written an essay since August, I’m kind of anxious to get going on this one. So I’ll leave the Googling for another time.
I just know that Brad and I have very different taste buds from each other. If he says, “Quick, taste this. You’re going to love it!” I’m almost certain not to like it much at all. He loves, pickles, mustard, grits and watered down lemonade along with many other things I must pass on.
We could never split a meal in a restaurant because we could never agree on what would taste good.
For my part, I love coconut, Fettuccini Alfredo, and cheese cake. Brad likes cheese cake most of the time and Alfredo if it has next to zero parmesan cheese in it. But his hate for coconut is known world wide and his vocal rants against it are embarrassing.
When one of my granddaughters was at our house with her little brother, she said a phrase that was new to me: “Don’t yuck my yum!”
“What did you say, Livvi?” I asked.
“Don’t yuck my yum,” she repeated. “That’s what my teacher says to say when someone doesn’t like something we like.”
I could certainly use that phrase, especially when I’m ordering one of my all time favorites, coconut cream pie, and Brad audibly denounces it.
“Don’t yuck my yum!” Maybe you all have heard those words over and over already. Maybe it’s one of those phrases like “she’s not a happy camper” that I thought was so clever until I realized it was being used abundantly by the masses. I don’t necessarily like to say things that everyone else is saying. Just like my abhorrence of dark chocolate and dogs that want to sit on my lap, my hesitancy to jump in with “in” phrases puts me somewhat on the outside.
Some day I’ll google “don’t yuck my yum” and see if it has become overpopulated. Until then, I will take advantage of those words to remind myself and others that we are all different and we don’t have to like the same things. Still it’s best to be respectful of someone else’s likes—their yums. And we don’t need to feel compelled to “yuck” them.
Wish Facebook would catch on to that lesson.
