Leaving their tails behind them

I field all the usual protests that are commonplace at mealtimes in most houses.

“Wot’s for dinner Mom?”
“Shepherd’s pie.”
“Yuk I hate it.”
“I hate pie.”
“I hate shepherds.”
“Dummy! You don’t even know what a shepherd is!”
“Don’t speak to your brother, anybody, like that please?”
“Anything else? No vegetables please?”
“Only peas, frozen peas I’m afraid.”
“Can’t we have corn?”
“I don like peas, peas is poison.”
“I don’t like frozen.”
“I’ll cook them….warm them up first dear.”
“Hang on a minute………dya mean Shepherd’s pie or Cottage pie?”
“Er….” I try and recall which trip wire I’m about to hang myself on.
“Din you say Shepherds pie is made of sheep?”
“Sort of, that’s right, lamb but Cottage pie is made out of beef.”
“Oh no I hate the lamb’s tails one!”
“Lambs?”
“Tails?”
“No, no, no, that’s back in the olden days, we don’t make them out of lambs’ tails any more, just minced…..meat.”
“If we’re gonna have disgusting dinner are we gonna have delicious pudding to make up for it?”
“Um…..I haven’t quite got that far yet.”
“But that’s what you always do.”
“What is it that I always do?”
“When you give us poisonous dinner we also get delicious pudding, carrot and stick!”
“Carrot……carrots is poison.”
“I don eat stick.”
“No guys it’s like a bribe, like an M&M for doin the right thing.”

Clearly I need to rise to newer and higher levels of dastardly sophistication.