Picky Eater

Memoir for class. All I seem to have time for between work and school is school. It's enough to piss off a saint.

I'll admit it. I'm a picky eater. I don't like it, I won't eat it. "You're as stubborn as a mule!" was a regular refrain in my house when I was a child. And I was. In fact, I may even have been more stubborn than a mule at times.

When I was five I got into a battle of wills with my newly named Daddy Ray over whether or not I'd be finishing the frankly repulsive green beans he and my mother were trying to pass off as food. "You'll sit there until you finish it. There are children starving in Africa you know!" So he crossed his arms and leaned back, expecting to be in it for the ten minute haul. He was new to the family, it wasn't really his fault he didn't know. Two hours later, after much gagging, shouting, and dodging of tiny green projectiles, he was falling asleep in the chair at the kitchen table, I was tearing up a napkin, and there were still peas on the plate.

It didn't change as I grew older. At age eight, I was the same as any little girl, obsessed with horses and ponies. Of course I also had the hyperfocus of ADHD on my side, so I could draw horses from any angle. I wrote stories about horses. I played pretend horses. I collected horse figurines that my dog, charmingly named Wendilina the One-eyed Witch (she was, genuinely one-eyed), would then chew the heads off of. My dearest desire at that age was to go horse back riding. I'd never been. My parents tried to keep the trip a secret. They really did. I had no reason to believe the drive to Denver was any different from any other weekend visit to my Grandpa. How was I to know that they had reservations for horseback riding that day?

They gave me orange juice for the hour long drive. I was new to their family, it wasn't really their fault that they didn't know. Orange juice and cars don't mix well when it comes to me. On the single most important day of my young life I was car sick. They let the secret out, hoping that I would buck up that my sickness was just a passing childish fancy. 3/4 of the way there and I was green and sweating. 

They stopped for lunch and insisted that I have chicken noodle soup so I wouldn't throw up while I was riding the horse. I didn't like soup then. I don't like soup now. They didn't last two hours. We were at a restaurant after all. The ultimatum was laid down. I could eat my soup or go without riding horses. It was the hardest decision of my life. 

All the way home my dad just kept shaking his head. "It's enough to piss off a saint, Crysten. All you had to do is eat the soup. You're as stubborn as a mule."

Author's Note

It was a last minute thing. No spit and shine to it yet. First draft.