CREDIT: VSURKOV / THINKSTOCK
Children shouldn't drive, and neither should manic food pushing killers.

From a young age, literacy is an incredibly important subject. I’m sure most of us can remember learning to print, learning to write in cursive and eventually learning to fluff up a 350 word essay to meet a four page requirement just hours before the extended deadline.

One thing that we often overlook in literature is the importance of children’s books. Authors like Dr. Seuss and Robert Munsch have left a definitive mark on us all, hopefully for the better. But this column has one purpose and one purpose only: to ruin your favourite childhood books. This week I turn my attention to the questionable Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.

The book starts out with good intentions before quickly declining into vehicular manslaughter. The antagonist, Sam-I-Am, is attempting to get Dan to try a dish of green eggs and ham. Dan says no, and Sam proceeds to stalk poor Dan for the rest of his day. He follows Dan home, to his car, onto a train and even through a boat.

At the end of the book, Dan caves to the pressure and tries the dish, only to find out he quite likes it. On the surface, this book is sending mixed messages about peer pressure at best. If we dig a little deeper into the story however, we unearth some sinister subplots.

First off can we discuss the food itself? When was the last time you saw green eggs or green ham? My condolences if you’ve ever cracked an egg so old that it’s gone moldy inside, although this is probably the lesser of two evils here. Just cooking a green ham must take several years off of your life expectancy. No wonder Sam wants to pass off this tainted food.

Perhaps the dish was cooked with more malicious intentions than the book depicts. The story ends with Dan eating the eggs and ham, but I’m sure that next page would have depicted his untimely death.

Green Eggs and Ham starts off fairly shady, with Sam breaking into Dan’s house to offer him food. Either no doors are locked in Dr. Seuss’ world or all the antagonists are expert lock-picks.

Sam’s intentions become clearer when he tries to bait Dan into getting into a crate that bears a striking resemblance to an animal trap. The book depicts Sam saying, “Won’t you eat this dish of crap, won’t you eat it in a trap? I can swear that you won’t die, I can swear that I won’t lie,” now mind you, I’m paraphrasing here.

Dan attempts to flee, but Sam, the eggs and ham toting little man, kidnaps Dan and steals a van. Never mind that Sam just committed a kidnapping and possibly grand theft auto; he’s driving with one hand on the wheel and one hand holding a platter of food. If Dan didn’t want eggs before, I don’t think that a kidnapping is going to make him any more willing to cave.

With the tension building, obviously Sam must raise the stakes by driving the car onto a train. Sam is displaying all the characteristics of a crazed psychopath. I deeply fear for both Dan and the train conductor right now. Sam is on a mission and doesn’t seem to care who gets hurt.

Perhaps the train conductor is Sam’s accomplice though, because the stakes rise again as the train drives straight into the ocean. Well, not straight into the ocean, he actually takes the train through a boat on the way. Passengers, conductors and captains are all flung into the sea at the ruthless hands of Sam and his ham.

The rampant trauma of the day would make anyone bend to the will of our antagonist. Amidst drowning in the middle of an ocean, he still presses Dan to eat the now soggy eggs and ham. It’s no wonder that the surviving crash victims side with Sam and it’s not because the food is secretly delicious, it’s because they fear for their friends and family. Clearly Sam will stop at nothing short of nuclear warfare to make Dan eat this dish.

These poor people have been terrorized and victimized and used as mere pawns in a lethal game of mystery meat. If one man has to die to save the lives of an entire city, wouldn’t you side with the townsfolk?

Be it an assassination, a sacrifice or a harebrained rampage, Green Eggs and Ham is extortion at its most whimsical. I sentence this book to four years of culinary school and a lifetime ban from all modes of transportation.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.