HELENA, MT—During the normal breakfast routine at the Miller household on Tuesday of this week, the youngest of the family, Kelli, politely requested her favorite morning meal: pancakes. Her mother kindly prepared them and her father cut one into smaller bites and then poured maple syrup thereon.
At this point, Kelli, 2, took a single bite before expressing her dissatisfaction with the amount of syrup her father had given her. "Daddy," she said, complaining, "there's not enough syrup."
Her father drizzled a little more over her plate, and then attempted to eat his own meal. Kelli reportedly did not take another bite to test the syrup levels of her meal, but instead made a judgment visually, and again insisted that there was not enough of the sweetener.
After several unheeded suggestions that she actually taste the pancake, and even some explanations that there was, in fact, plenty of syrup to make the pancakes sweet, Kelli remained firm in her belief that any attempt to ingest the food in front of her would be an unmitigated nightmare.
Eyeing the time, Kelli's mother, Rita, 34, poured what would by any objective observer be called a liberal amount of maple syrup upon her now not-so-hot cake. Without so much as a glance toward her plate, Kelli transformed from a pleasant, if somewhat opinionated, young girl into a volcano of fury. Witnesses describe horrors unknown by the childless civilized world: screams that would make a banshee blush, sobs of despair that no one mortal could bear.
After several minutes of failed attempts to console young Kelli, her parents finally offered for her to drink a cup full of syrup. This gesture seemed to have disrupted the tantrum. However, Kelli then countered with great confusion that their offer sounded "gross."
Sources report that the incident was finally brought to a close when Mrs. Miller turned on some nursery rhymes to distract Kelli.
The experts at The Colon estimate that as many as 15 tablespoons of maple syrup were wasted in the standoff.