Joe will say he wants chicken nuggets, or a pear, or a piece of cake, or an entire bagel but with different kinds of nut butter on each side, sliced into triangles, or strawberries with their tops cut off, but then eat none of it, and I’m left with the food waste wondering, would it be like this if we were on the Oregon Trail? Because I grew up playing the computer game, this is my reality check. Would Joe really stumble out of the wagon, see the beef jerky and hoe cakes and freak out that he wanted venison, instead? Or would he eat to survive? Of course kids have too much choice now, and we aren’t on the Oregon Trail but instead perpetually five minutes away from a grocery store, and we want them to eat so they don’t later act like psychopaths, so we give them what they want. But what do we do with all of this WASTED FOOD? I lie awake thinking about it after putting leftover little shards of string cheese that I’ll throw away a week later into tupperware. I want to log into an app and click chicken nuggets and fries and somewhere else, within a 10 mile radius, there is another toddler who’s innocent mother just served him buttered noodles only to discover, THROUGH SCREAMS, that he wanted chicken nuggets and fries. She’s clicked Butter Noodles and like tinder, we match, but we don’t fall in love, instead a 3rd party trades our food for us, nothing goes to waste, our kids eat, and we’re left realizing that we didn’t waste food but we DID just spend 30 dollars. Joe is drawn to the fanciest melons at the farmers market. What’s this one? It’s a spanish varietal, frogskin, hard to grow, says the farmer, sweet like cantaloupe, kids love it. I slice it open and present it to him in its entirety. He’s completely uninterested. I open KidFoodSwap. Search under Melons.