It has long been her understanding that adults ate salads. Furthermore, it had been her understanding that adults worked 9 to 5 jobs that they hated, watched sports on the television, drank alcohol, and sold or gave away all their toys. Upon finding herself an adult, to her great surprise and consternation as deepest childhood felt a year or two ago at most, she realized that there were no instructions. When in Rome, as they say, one must do as the Romans do; upon finding herself in adulthood, she attempted to do as the adults did.

She ate salads, though the taste made her gag; she lied and insisted that she loved them. She took a 9 to 5 job and did her best to hate it, although it was really more of a mediocrity than anything unbearable. She watched sports on television and chose a relatively local team to support, loudly insisting that they were the best and would win this year even though, privately, she thought they were awful and doomed to wallow in defeat for eternity. She drank alcohol, though the taste was wretched; people assured her that she would grow to like the taste, though she wondered why anyone would bother, as all it ever gave her was a headache. And, perhaps most devastatingly, she gave away or sold everything that had been a toy, from action figures to computer games; it was, after all, time to “get serious.”

It would take years for her to realize that the lie of those salad days was more injurious than anything childlike she could have done.

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