We went through the drive through, Dad ordered a cinnamon roll for me and it came in a simple paper box. Peeling a piece of dough from the coiled exterior I took a bite, and that pillowy dough was interrupted with a slight burst and chew that I was not expecting: a raisin. God forbid a raisin in anything. I clenched my face and swallowed whatever chunk was in my mouth whole, then I closed the box. Hoping I had concealed my dislike from him as he maneuvered morning traffic. He asked, ‘Don’t you like it?’. My heart sank all I could think was my Dad bought me this. I equated not liking the breakfast he bought me to abandoning him. I so badly just wanted to like it. But I couldn’t take another bite. So, I lied and told him I would eat it when I got to school. I brought the cinnamon roll to class and the guilt ate at me. I couldn’t eat it, but I couldn’t throw it away. So, I hid it in the left-hand corner of my desk. Thus the roll sat in my desk for weeks slowly petrifying.
When parent teacher conferences came around my parents returned from the meeting and sat me down. I was fearing that I had done something terribly wrong, or was failing spelling to the point of being held back (at this point I had forgotten about the cinnamon roll and didn’t realize the oddity of leaving food in a school desk). I remember them both smiling slightly, trying to hold back laughter as they explained that it is ‘ok to not like something’ and ‘to just say so’ as well as ‘you didn’t need to hide that roll in your desk’. The petrified roll was disposed of during the conference.
It has taken me years to understand that I tend to harbor more guilt than the average bear, and I often assign more meaning to objects for better or worse. In my opinion this has its benefits, for when I am the one to dispose of the object that no longer serves me, I assume it to be more cathartic. I once read that we only assign memory to things we have emotional responses to, and that made me aware of why people might be astonished at my strong memory of small details from ordinary things.
If only I could go back in time and talk to that young Mollie, informing her that at the old age of 34 she will like raisins in her rolls.
