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John Lee Super-Taster

By Jimmy Jimereeno

John Lee was born in a tiny cabin in the woods on a chilly spring morning. At the

moment of his birth, it is said that people and animals and race car drivers arrived

from all over with gifts for John and his parents. Not just ordinary gifts, though. All

the gifts were food. A family from Tokyo brought sashimi. Children from Sicily

brought pasta putanesca. Mutton from Egypt. Grapefruit from Florida. Tea from

England. Curry from Mumbai. For hours and hours visitors arrived with their gifts.

And John Lee did something very interesting. He ate it all.

John Lee, you see, was no ordinary baby. He had an enormous appetite. He

ate constantly. On the morning after his birth, John ate a hearty breakfast of eggs,

sausage, turkey bacon, French toast, hash browns, grits (with butter, of course) and

pancakes. By the time he was done eating, it was time for a mid-morning snack: a

fruit pizza, half a quiche, three boxes of granola bars, smoked salmon, and a case ofbratwurst. Lunch followed this and then a mid-afternoon snack and dinner and

dessert and a midnight snack and so on. The only time he stopped eating was to

watch his favorite channel, the Food Network. During commercials, of course, he

would whip up some of the tasty treats he learned about in the show he happened

to be watching.

His parents were naturally stumped. They thought that newborn babies were

supposed to do a lot of sleeping and a little eating. With some dirty diapers in

between. Not John, though. He didnt sleep for a month. All he did was eat. There

was no explaining it.

But the day he turned one month old, Johns parents finally figured it out.

John Lee ate because he had an extraordinary sense of taste. Things didnt taste like

they did to you and me. Tastes were much more intense and powerful for John.

Sweets tasted sweeter. Salty foods were much saltier. And the bitterness of bitter

foods was almost overwhelming. If he ate the right things, it made eating more

enjoyable and happy than anything you can imagine. Food tasted so good that he

never wanted to stop.

How did Johns parents figure this out? He told them, of course. Wow that

tastes good, he said. Johns mom and dad, exhausted from cooking non-stop for

the past month were barely surprised.

Taste this, he said, handing them a cupcake. Its so sweet, I can hardly

stand it. It tastes like its made of pure sugar.

Johns mom and dad gave it a try. It tasted normal to them. Their son

obviously had a gift. They made sure he put it to good use.

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At his first birthday party, John taste-tested all the different cakes his mom

made, to make sure they were just right for the special day. His mom entered his

favorite one in a baking competition and won second place! (The Pillbury Dough Boy

wonagain.)

By the time he was four, he was reviewing restaurants for the localnewspaper. The owners of the good restaurants made millions when John wrote an

article recommending people eat there. He also, however, put over 34 restaurants

out of business single-handedly by writing negative reviews.

At age five, the Food Network gave him his own show. But it turns out no one

was interested in watching him eat 100 pounds of different foods every week and

talk about how amazing the flavors were. The show was cancelled, although John

enjoyed it thoroughly.

It wasnt until three years later that John ran into a problem with his super-

human tasting abilities. And it was a big problem.

A local businessman was causing quite a stir in town. His name was Slappy

McSpendAlot and he was the meanest millionaire this side of Mile-High Junction. He

was so mean that he once paid $3,500 for a puppy just so he had something cute to

kick. He once spent millions building the most amazing and amusing amusement

park in the world just so he could close it down 3 minutes before the gates opened.

He once sent his dear little granny on a cruise to Jamaica for her birthday. What?

Thats not mean? Well ol Slappy sent her on that cruise and then paid the ships

captain $10 million to sail around the world over and over and overand never

come back to shore.

Slappy McSpendAlot made every person around him miserable. Except one

John Lee. John was happy every day. As long as he had delicious food to eat, he was

as happy as a hornet on holiday. Not even Slappys meanness could bring him

down. And that drove Slappy nuts. But Slappy had a plan. He started buying every

restaurant in town. Slappy knew if John had nowhere to go out to eat, he couldnt

possibly be happy. Without delectable Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers and ice cream

sundaes and onion rings smothered in tomato ketchup, John Lee was sure to

become depressed.

Thats okay, said John. Ill just start eating in. I used to have my own

cooking show. As long as the grocery stores are well stocked, I can cook my ownmeals. There are lots of recipes I want to try out anyway.

Slappy heard this and started to scream. He couldnt believe that one super-

tasting man could ruin his life. And then he had an idea. An awful, terrible idea.

Buying the grocery stores would be too easy, he said sinisterly. Ill buy all

the farms and factories that send food to the grocery stores. And Ill change all the

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foods so that they taste nastier than the nastiest tastes you can imagine. And

thats what he did.

If he could pull this off, Slappy would bring a type of misery to John Lee that

no one on earth could possibly fathom. Imagine picking up a tasty piece of

pepperoni pizza only to take a bite and find out that it tastes like an onion thatsbeen rotting on your kitchen counter for the past three weeks. Thats what it would

taste like to John Leetimes one million. And as an added bonus (for Slappy),

everyone elses food would taste awful, too. What could possibly stop Slappy from

terrorizing the tastebuds of the entire town?

When John got wind of this, he knew he had to do something. He put down

his lunch of homemade vichyssoise and quiche Lorraine and set to work on a plan of

his own.

The next day, John Lee arrived at the home of Slappy McSpendAlot where he

issued a challengeif Slappy could cook a recipe that John Lee wouldnt eat, John

would leave town. Forever. If it didnt make John hurl, then Slappy would relinquish

control of the towns restaurants and stores AND buy everyone in the town dinner

for a year! The only rules were that it could only be one dish. And it had to be

served at exactly 6:00.

When Slappy heard this, they say you could see the gleam in his eyes from

the rings of Saturn. If there was one thing Slappy liked even more than making

people miserable, it was a challenge. This little game was a perfect combination of

the two.

Since John had only given him until sundown, Slappy had to work and he had

to work fast. Even the cheetahs and race car drivers in town were amazed at how

quickly Slappy was movinggathering ingredients, setting water to boil, stirring,

mixing and so on and so on. Within minutes some of the vilest, most disgusting

ingredients were being combined in Slappys kitchen. Smoke billowed. A foul aroma

mixed and wafted over the town. The townspeople couldnt put their finger on it,

but they believed it smelled like two parts dirty socks and one part radicchio

lettuce. They were worried for John. The intensity of the grossness just might be too

much for him to handle. The town grew more quiet as the 6:00 p.m. deadline

approached.

They all gathered in the town square. John sat a table. Slappy, wearing agrease-stained (at least they hoped it was grease) apron, stood at the microphone.

He had a triumphant look about it.

Slappy stepped to the microphone. And now I present the meal that will

destroy the super-tasting John Lee. I call it Filet of Sole. Now normally, Filet of sole

involves a tasty piece of fish baked in a combination of butter, garlic and lemon.

Slappys dish involved the other kind of solethe bottom of a shoe. And it was

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covered with a greenish-brown, bubbling and stinky sauce that appeared to have

chunks of a gray, clay-like material in it.

John Lee turned his head away in disgust. The audience gasped. Then John

Lee did something incredible. He took a bite. His face twisted up like a pretzel.

Steam started coming out of his ears. All of the birds and animals and race cardrivers that had come to watch started to cry over the pain that this was causing

him.

To you and me this filet of sole would have been repulsive and disgusting. But

Johns super-tasting abilities made this taste like a burnt piece of toast covered in

motor oil, drizzled with moldy nacho cheese deep fried in sulfuric acid. Every caring

person in the entire world felt a little sick to their stomachs at that very moment,

even if they had never heard of John Lee.

But then John did something incredible. He looked out at the crowd and saw

their sadness and pain. He knew they felt so badly for him but were helpless to do

anything about it. And so, his face untwisted. His nausea passed. And he continued

to chew. And he swallowed that bite down and took another and another. Soon the

entire disgusting entre was gone. The crowd went wild. The birds sang. The

animals danced. The race car drivers high-fived each other. And Slappy scowled.

Slappy snapped his fingers and instantaneously (some would say magically)

tables appeared in the town square. And on each table was a feast fit for kings and

queens. Pile upon pile of delicious foods. The entire town sat down to eat the most

delicious meal theyd ever eaten.

Except for John. For the first time in his life, he passed up a super super-

tasting experience. He sat back in his chair and smiled. The light of his smile was so

bright that no one even noticed him slip away.

The next year was the best year in the history of the town. Every night they

sat down to a delicious dinner together and enjoyed each others company. Even

Slappy became a little less mean. He finally opened that amusement park and left it

open for all to enjoy.

As for John Lee, he was never heard from again. But if you ever taste

something thats really, really good, be sure to thank him. Because with out John

Lee Super-Taster, your food probably would taste like a shoe.

THE END