KingofHearts likes ranch dressing with his fries instead of ketchup. (He also eats peanut butter on his pancakes!?!) Every time we go to a restaurant, he has to not only get the weird look from the waiter when he orders a side of ranch dressing, but then extol the virtues of eating the ranch dressing with the fries "It's good, I swear!" in order to justify the choice to the stanger who doesn't really care what he eats on his fries as long as he leaves a tip for the effort of going back to the kitchen and getting it.

He's so fanatic about it, he obsesses about the waiter/waitress forgetting the ranch dressing. They always do. I say, "just don't bother to tell them when you order and ask for it when the food comes so they won't forget." But I guess he feels it's his duty to let the server know what he's up against as soon as we sit down. One time we were having lunch with 7 or 8 friends. We all ordered and the waitress went away, brought drinks, etc. At some point after the drinks arrived and the waitress disappeared, KingofHearts became extremely agitated that he'd forgotten to order the Ranch dressing to go with his French fries -- because... that's the only way to eat fries if you're KingofHearts. So he started looking around for the waitress to tell her. As any good waitress, by this time she's nowhere to be seen. I remind him that waitresses always forget his Ranch dressing anyway, so he might just as well wait until the food comes and then ask for it. This is not acceptable and he notifies everyone at the table to be on the lookout for the waitress and gives me the task of ordering if I see the waitress while he's in the bathroom. He comes back... still no waitress. He simply cannot be a part of the conversation while worrying about the Ranch dressing, so finally he gets up and asks some other waitress to find our waitress. A few moments later, she appears at the table and he says "I forgot to order a side of Ranch dressing with my meal... you know... to go with my fries." She writes it down. A few moments later, the food finally comes and the waitress put our meals down in front of each of us. When she comes to KingofHearts, she puts down his meal; he has ordered Jambalaya.... which does not come with fries. A second later, she comes back with a side of Ranch dressing and sets it down in front of him. KingofHearts looks up at her and says, "Can I have some fries to go with my Ranch dressing?"

He's passed this crazy combining of foods down to our daughter too. The other day at a friend's house, I left the room to use the computer and when I came back, they were both sitting at the table having a snack. She was dipping crackers first into a cup of orange juice, then a cup of tomato juice and then eating them. I looked at Monica, Monica looked at me, and I said, "Well that's new." Unaffected by the critical eyes of adults, she simply went on smacking her lips and making yummy sounds.

Here's last night's request after I plopped her plate of fish sticks down in front of her:

"I want some ketchup... and some ranchup too!"