Personal Narrative: The Bowl That Changed My Life

Learning to hate Chef Boyardee: The Bowl that Changed my Life

When I was around four or five years old my family took a trip down to Orlando, Florida to Disney World. We would be driving the entire fourteen hours with two children and a baby. Most every time that my family has gone to Disney World we have left around two to four a.m. so that we wouldn’t get to the hotel too late at night. The night before our departure my mother had taken care to clean everything and leave the home in good standing while we were away. The car was packed beforehand so that when we all woke up the next morning we could just leave. Now although my mother had gone to great lengths to ensure that everything was tidied up; my tornado of a mess-creating father would

First you’d hook your finger under the tab on the top and begin to pull the lid back--slowly--trying your hardest not to spray the “sauce” on on the kitchen walls. This was always a threat once there is the inevitable click of the lid separating from the can. The smell of lukewarm beef and cheese fills the air--heavenly. After pulling the top off you are left with a bright red circle of nothingness. A red hole: devoid of any flavor that could have potentially been incorporated into the food. Nary an herb or spice leaves its dark shadow in the sauce. The next thing one must do is hold the can over a bowl, and watch the rest of the real fun unfold. All at once the pale yellow--nearly formless--blobs that the label calls ravioli; fall into the bowl. Slipping around in a thin sauce beside one another. there are always two or so blobs left inside the can. Clinging. The room temperature chunks hold to the ridge inside the can that used to keep the lid on and shelter the world from the contents of the aluminum death chamber. The last step is to place the ravioli into microwave where energy carrying microwaves will excite the water molecules in the red liquid that the pale blobs swim around in. Tomato sauce? Once the water molecules begin to buzz next to one another faster and faster; the bowl begins to spit unrefrigerated magma against the sides of the microwave. After the timer rings it’s time to take it out and...eat it. And so my father did. He made

I was so excited to finally be back at my own house that I suddenly forgot about my sickness and jumped out of the van; running to the front porch. I anxiously waited for my dad to unlock the door, and once he did I ran inside. The first room to greet me was the living room and next the kitchen. Simply reacquainting with my house again I went from the living room into the kitchen. Something however stopped me midway into the kitchen. I caught a whiff of something horrifying. Before I had gotten within five feet of the sink I knew something was horribly wrong. I had already been sick to my stomach shortly before this, so I was hypersensitive to smells; in particular rotting food. I followed the smell, getting queasier the closer I got. One more step until I saw it. Blobs. Not pale yellow anymore. Dark green and white splotches and strings stretched across the bowl: like fur. The contents of the bowl were engulfed in mold. The ravioli had been left to fester for an entire week, and it was far more than my weak, sick, stomach could take. I ran out of the kitchen back outside to my parents that were halfway down the driveway; carrying bags from the car back to the house. I could do nothing more than dry heave and gasp for air in doing so. To this day: Spaghetti O’s, Hamburger Helper, and the infamous Chef Boyardee ANYTHING, will make me absolutely sick to smell. I have dry heaved more than once since