The most important meal of the day

“Please Daddy?”

My father sighed. “Pumpkin,” he said in the patient tones reserved for difficult five year olds, “you don’t even like that kind of cereal.”

We walked through the turnstile and into the grocery store. It was crowded and he made me take his hand. “But Daddy...”

He looked down at me, my friendly giant of a father. “It’ll taste like Cheerios,” he warned. “Are you going to eat something that tastes like Cheerios?”

Stupidly enough, I shook my head. At five, I was not yet an accomplished liar.

“We can’t buy food that you’re not going to eat.”

I realized my mistake. “I’ll eat it! I’ll eat it!” I insisted, too late.

My father shook his head. I dragged him to the cereal aisle and pointed out the masks on the back of the box but he was unmoved. He thought, I’m certain, that there was a lesson in this.

The next day, we visited my aunt and uncle. My cousin greeted me wearing a cardboard Luke Skywalker mask. I kicked him and burst into tears.