Samantha – a cautionary tale

Samantha liked to stuff her face,

She’d eat at a tremendous pace

And didn’t ever think it rude

To talk while gobbling down her food.

 

She’d shovel meals in with a spade,

Unmindful of the mess it made.

She didn’t taste a single bite,

Which others found most impolite.

 

One day her eating ways abhorred

None other than a high-born lord.

Although he didn’t like her style,

She had a most seductive smile;

 

And while her manners made him sick,

Her beauty made his heart beat quick.

And so with patience and with pain,

This lord began a long campaign;

 

He taught her grace and etiquette,

And scolded her when she’d forget

To chew each mouthful fifty times,

Repenting of her eating crimes.

 

He wouldn’t let her gulp her drinks,

Or swallow whole her sausage links.

He forced the woman that he wooed

To take small bites and savor food.

 

In time Samantha learned to eat

With manners of a true elite.

When sipping tea she was aware

To lift her pinky in the air;

 

No longer would she slurp it down

And make her dinner partners frown.

She kept her mouth shut when she dined

And soon her manners were refined.

 

The lord was pleased with how she ate,

So on the night of their twelfth date

He gave to her a diamond ring,

Insisting that they wed that spring.

 

Samantha didn’t dare protest

While chewing up her chicken breast;

And by the time that she could speak,

They had been married for a week.

 

And if she wasn’t chewing now,

This is what you’d hear her vow:

Be careful how you eat or you

Just might become a lady too!

 

© 2009 Rebecca Colby