the orange devil and all my monsters

I am about to head out to school. I now get off the bus a bit earlier (to add a little more truckin' time to my day), and when I do, I step onto the sidewalk just outside the HOSTESS CAKE plant. So yesterday, as I was walking by said sugar bomb factory, I took a little whiff, and it made me remember how I coveted those evil apple pies, and how I could suck down one in no time flat and be wanting another, and I'd like to say that this was during an isolated period in my life, but it really wasn't, and as I now know that those cakes are really quite crappy, I don't think the sucking was about savoring their fruity or buttery or floury goodness, but rather, trying to patch some hole that had formed-- that's hostess fruit pie as fix-a-flat, only non-aerosol and possibly more environmentally friendly and not the kind of thing you keep in the trunk of your car for years just waiting to use. No way.

So the thought of those pies (apple, berry) got me thinking about all the summer lunches lost to Kraft Mac'n'Cheese. And that was definitely my teenage years. And I could easily kill a whole box and I'd like to blame the fact that I grew up with brothers who could put away a lot of food, or the fact that my mom didn't let us eat much junk, but that gooey orange cheeze (how else can we spell it?) wasn't really food. It was a salve for my scabby teenage soul. That stuff, it was a salve, and it was a sedative, and those quick lunches -- odd, how I could suck it down so much faster than I could make it-- soothed me, even if they left me tired and greasy inside.

If I were to build my wall of pain, my tribute to teenage angst and the discomfort of coming into consciousness of the World and the secrets of my family, and my own lack of control of my home surroundings, it would be constructed entirely of Kraft (and generic brand) Macaroni and Cheese boxes. And it would be built like a house of cards all around my teenage me.

I can't eat that stuff anymore. Not even the organic, non-gmo, non-food colored stuff. I can't go there.