1. My date walked out when I threw a fit over an anchovy on my pizza. You don’t understand, I said. Finger pointing in her face. Luckily, no beer over my head.
2. Are there any other foods that anger you? My therapist, in full serious voice. Spinach—I got that from my grandfather. Perhaps we can talk more about him? No, we can’t.
3. When I was five, my mother tucked a shopping list in my front pocket along with $10, sent me shopping. Ask for help, she said. Instead I returned with Twinkies, soda, and gum, got spanked.
4. I didn’t mention tuna. Ten years old, opening a can of tuna, split my thumb open on the edge. Three stitches to close. Hated tuna ever since.
5. Mom claims she sent me shopping at three but I don’t remember. Excuses: it was just 1,000 feet away, hauling the kids such a production. My initial run: bread, pickles, Tab.
6. I relent: grandfather was surly. Everything angered him. He’d play solitaire at his table, blow cigarette smoke, eat canned anchovies, complain about grandkids drinking his bottled Coke.
7. I called that date, left desperate messages. I’m so sorry. I won’t complain about anchovies. Please call. I’m so alone. She didn’t understand.
i have nightmares about artichokes. i have no idea why they were invented.
ReplyDeletehmmmm...food: a repast of a re-past...aren't I the clever one? I too write about food sometimes and not in a Moveable Feast kind of way either--won't be licking your chops over a description of sopping up sausage grease. As a child my mother sent me to the store once with a note for the druggist. I handed it to him and he fetched a box of Kotex--thanks, Mom. She always said, "Bring back my change." I would. Never once a gratuity: "And here's a nickle for yourself to buy a candy bar." Piggy banks are always up for pilfering, but what you did was pretty brazen. For me, it was the 50s, an era enshrouded by sheets flapping in the wind, of vive la difference: men were men, women were women, unless you were black, children were to be seen not heard (fat chance)and bound by servitude to their almighty creators. But, this is supposed to be about you and you my friend are very gifted...your mother sounds interesting and probably the reason you are in therapy--always, always blame it on the moms--but to send you on your first errand before you can barely walk? Exquisite--she's probably the one from whom you got your talent, no?
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by and commenting, Lady of New Roses. What I’ve got here is a patchwork of truth, half-truth, and made up stuff from my life, the lives of others, and no one at all.
ReplyDeleteThe young kid grocery shopping was actually based on a friend, whose parents used him as their personal quick run shopper for the store that was just up the street. The ongoing debate in his family as I recall it was that he remembered going to the store before he was even in school, handing the list to someone in the store to help him, though his parents disputed this (I turned this around).
The grandfather is mostly my grandfather, who was surly and declared once, in his last years, that spinach made him angry. He smoked a lot and played solitaire at the kitchen table, though he wasn’t angry (as far as I knew) when the grandkids would help themselves to bottles of Coke. I don’t know if he ate anchovies.
I did cut my finger on a tuna can when I was 10 and had to go to the ER for stitches. I still like tuna though.
Everything else is fiction. So it all becomes so.