Soup Flavoring

My mother once asked me why I hadn’t reported that time in the garage with Billy’s Brother

She said I’d been weak.

And then added something about those expensive mushrooms that crumble in your hands,

with that fucking air of banality as if she hadn’t just used the word mushroom to snap me in two, just like one of those fluorescent glowsticks only Brittney and Karen had at their parties.

When she used to drag me to the grocery store so I that could carry her bags to the car, she’d spend hours in that damn vegetable aisle that was 102 paces long, and 43 wide.

She’d make me pick 60 green beans individually and count them before putting them into that little plastic vegetable bag that would always eat your hand when you tried to place anything inside.

And then she’d smile at the check-out person, who would give her that look of pity that almost made having a teenager worth it. Then she’d call that damn cashier by her first name, as if she gave a flying fuck about Stacy from Walmart, but when we’d get out to the parking lot, she’d yell at me for getting too close to the cars that were fifty feet away and driving in the opposite direction. 

I tried to think of a worse vegetable than one that could either kill you, or be used in soup for extra flavoring.

Think about it, and let me know if you come up with one.

I couldn’t.