A childhood lesson

I had poptarts for breakfast this morning. Sadly, they were of the unfrosted strawberry variety. I much prefer chocolate poptarts. Or s’mores or chocolate chip or chocolate fudge or chocolate vanilla cream or even brown sugar cinnamon. But all we had was unfrosted strawberry.

When I was little, we had poptarts pretty often, but we only got the fruit kinds. My mother made up for the healthiness of fruit poptarts by toasting them and putting butter on them. Have you ever heard of anyone putting butter on their poptarts? Well, that’s what my mother did for me. I honestly think this explains a lot about my eating habits as an adult.

Yes, we had poptarts often enough that, once I reached about 8 years old, I “fixed” my own poptarts in the morning. And did I mention I was also a curious child? Look, people, they’re serious when they say “don’t put shiny objects in the microwave.” I sincerely thought that it was one of those unnecessary precautions like “don’t ever get on an escalator with your shoes untied.” (Have you ever actually seen a kid with her shoelaces stuck in an escalator? I didn’t think so). But I assure you, it is not. One morning, I popped that tart into the microwave, shiny wrapper and all, and within three seconds, the microwave was filled with flames. I screamed, my mother grabbed tongs, the charred poptarts were thrown into the sink, and I was told one last time, “do not put shiny objects in the microwave.”

Lesson learned.