My husband’s business is a lot like many others. There are always outstanding accounts, and he is often left waiting on payments from insurance companies and other agencies.

With a 13-year-old son in the house, I am seriously considering asking David to go back to the old way of accepting payments from his patients for their medical care.

For example, when a company sends an employee in for a complete physical, instead of getting a purchase order signed and waiting for a check, the company could just send a pig with the employee.

I know his office is a little short on space, but I’ll worry about that later.

My main concern at this point is feeding the bottomless pit living at my house, commonly known as Matthew.

I know he looks innocent enough to the rest of you, but you aren’t trying to feed him.

He walks around with a pack of crackers or grapes in his hand at all times.

On a scarier note we have confirmed sightings of him up in the middle of the night raiding the refrigerator and freezer for a &uot;snack.&uot;

A snack for the wearer of size 13 tennis shoes is different than for other people.

To him it means a medium pizza, several ham sandwiches or large quantities of whatever he can get his hands on.

When he looked me eye to eye the other day, I realized I have a little problem.

If he continues growing, filling him up is going to get even harder.

I will have to come up with a new fee schedule for David’s office.

It will show one column with the regular prices for office visits, X-rays or such, and then it will have another column with what would be an acceptable food fee.

For example, if you came in for a regular checkup we might take four chickens for that.

And not that I want anyone to be really sick, but I could really use a side of beef.

That might hold him for a few days.

Christina Hall is the food editor at The Democrat. She can be reached at 442-9101 or by e-mail at christina.hall@natchezdemocrat.com