As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: Take it or leave it.

In this one-liner, Hackett compresses a familiar working-class childhood experience into a mock “menu,” where the only options are obedience or hunger. The humor comes from treating parental authority and economic constraint as if they were restaurant choices, exposing how little choice a child actually has. It also gestures toward mid‑20th‑century immigrant/Depression-era frugality often invoked in stand-up: meals are what the household can provide, not what the child prefers. The joke’s bite is affectionate rather than bitter, turning scarcity and strictness into a shared cultural memory and a lesson in gratitude and resilience.