My worst contribution to society during the Rites of Spring

Summer’s almost here, and with it comes a truly disgusting habit I picked up while covering baseball in my younger years: Eating sunflower seeds.

Not just eating them, but taking in a mouthful of salted, roasted seeds with the shells on. With a wad in my mouth, I suck the salt, crack the shells with my teeth and spit them out, then I chew up the seed. When I’m working out in the yard, the shells go all over the place. When I’m in proximity of others, I have a plastic cup that I can spit the shells into.

There have been times when I’ve accidently knocked over the cup, spilling saliva-soaked shells on the floor or in the car. Susan’s not too fond of when that happens.

Not so appealing, right?

I picked up a couple of packs of David seeds this weekend and I’ve been enjoying them immensely. The problem is, the girls have, too.

Thus my worst contribution: Teaching my kids how to spit seeds. Abby was the first to pick up the nasty habit. Camille followed suit tonight. They still don’t have the technique down, even though Abby tells Camille, “Nice spitting.”

I’m good enough to have one side of my mouth filled with new seeds then transfer the shells to the other side of my mouth while extricating the seeds without spitting until the other side is full of shell.

The girls are still in the infant stage of seed spitting, taking one at a time and still getting a lot of shell.

I keep telling myself it could be worse: I could still be doing chew.