Bland Seeds

While traveling some years ago in the car with my father, me in the passenger chair, we talked of great life events and all those wonderful little moments that should bring a father and daughter closer together. The sky was cloudy after a nice rainstorm, and the rainbow arched over the magical land of desert seeming to say, "enjoy this rain, it ain't comin' again for awhile."
Then, with a great licking of the lips, I reached into that old Circle K cup wedged down between the seats.
Hands full of  sunflower seeds, one by one I placed them into my mouth, chatting casually between sucking the bland shells, popping them open with my fingers, then eating the seed and placing the shell into an empty container. This repeated for some time all the while the merriment of the drive added to the glorious rays of sun beaming to the earth below. Being that my skills of sunflower seed eating require the use of fingers, at times I get a bit lazy and chew the shell whole and swallow - the fragments jabbing my throat the entire way down. This is not a recommended method, in fact, most adults are well capable of cracking the shells open with just teeth, however, this skill was not passed down by my ancestors.

Mid-discussion I look to my dad, and with a scrunched nose say, "These seeds are super bland. Why didn't you get the salt ones?"
Dad looks to me, looks at the 'Big Gulp', then back to me. His eyes are wide, a smile curling. "You haven't been eating from this cup, have you?"
"Yeah."
He busts up laughing, hysterical if you will, and I worry that his convulsive giggles might just shake the car off the road and onto the treacherous shoulder of the freeway.
He proceeds to share the following, though it's difficult to understand him through the snorting, "Your cousin Parker was riding with me, sitting in the seat, and he was...he was sucking those seeds dry. Sucking all the salt off them." His laughter has reached such a decibel that it must compare to that of a dog-whistle. I'm not sharing in the merriment any longer.
I sit back in the passenger chair with my arms folded, clench my jaw, then unable to keep a disgusted look plastered to my face, break into giggles of my own.