The virtue of the sit-down dinner

In addition to providing us all with a chance to partake of a meal, albeit one that at least one person is moaning is the worst dinner ever, and giving us the chance to connect as a family, it also gives me a chance to help develop and observe my children's manners.

Or lack of, as the case may be.

It is only ever a matter of time before someone hiccups, burps or worse. While the first one is usually an honest slip, it is always contagious, and before long it seems that everyone has a case of inappropriate table manners. Spaghetti night is never going to end well for any of them as long as slurping up strands is the preferred method to the spoon and fork twirl.

I've even considered taking it off the menu and just using penne for the next 18 years, but then someone begs for it, and spaghetti is right back on the menu, which leads us right back to the slurp. Usually, the Wonderful Husband breaks down at some point and starts comparing their manners to those of barnyard animals.

During one of these recent exchanges, G immediately saw his opening to bring an inappropriate topic to the table and capitalized on it.

"Dad. We're not pigs. We don't go rolling around in mud and poop all day."

Which in turn opened the door to one of my favorite topics, farm animals in general and pigs specifically. Having grown up on a small working farm, and then working as a veterinary technician for several years, I am the family authority on all things animal.

"You know, pigs are actually very neat, clean, fastidious animals," I said.

All three sets of eyebrows shot up and I got a few "yeah, right, Moms" thrown in my direction. G may or may not have muttered something under his breath about, "Oh here we go again with the animal talk."

What can I say? I loved growing up on the farm and I am genuinely sad that my kids have not gotten a chance to experience full-fledged farm life. Yet.

Until we can make that happen, I do my best to educate them and tell them stories about just how awesome farm life can be.

Back to the pigs. Running down my list of things that are awesome about pigs, this time, I hit upon one that I had apparently failed to mention before. Pigs will typically do their bathroom duties as far away from their food source and where they sleep as they possibly can.

G looked at me as if he couldn't believe that pigs could possibly be that smart. Conversation continued, spaghetti slurping continued, more pig education was delivered. All the while, I could see G working something over in his head.

Finally, as dinner came to an end, he made the announcement that he had "just one question."

"Mom, if pigs are smart enough to keep their bathroom away from their food, why is our downstairs bathroom right on the other side of the kitchen wall?"

Since I am the animal expert, he was looking at me when he asked the question, which freed up the WH to try to swallow his meatball before he laugh snorted it all over the table.

It took me a little while, but eventually, I came up with the answer that it's easiest to keep the water and drain pipes together when people build houses and that's why they're close to each other.

He wasn't buying it, however. He also informed us that he's going to find out what animals do eat right next to where they poop so he knows what to call us. Luckily, he didn't hear the WH whisper that we already know the answer to that one … "humans."

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.