Page 40 of The Turning of the Tables

Or Peeps?

Those marshmallow turds.

Peeps are delicious!

You’re a monster.

How can you not likePeeps?

How can you LIKE them?

Not liking Peeps is un-American.

My people were here first.

We get to decide what is and isn’t American.

Fair.

But Peeps are still delicious.

That’s the whitest thing you’ve ever said to me.

Wait, can you even EAT them?

Don’t they have gelatin or some shit?

Have you seen me?

I’m pretty white.

And thanks for reminding me that I can no longer eat my favorite treat.

You really are.

I forgive you.

And you’re welcome.

Trust me, it’s better for you this way.

I couldn’t help chucklinga little to myself. He wasn’t wrong—about either the fact that Peeps really were one of the whitest, most processed, Anglo-American sorts of things you could buyandthe fact that it was probably better for my overall health that I couldn’t eat them. Even though I loved them.

The reminder that they no longer loved me back—and, in fact, would openly try to murder me—did put a bit of adampener on my Easter joy. Especially since Noah had bought several packages for the party.

There are, for the record, only so many of them even someone without alpha-gal can eat before their body rebels against the artificial food dyes and hyper-processed sugar, and, for me, that number was just over two dozen.

In a sitting.

In my defense, I was ten when I discovered this, and I carefully metered out my adulthood Peep consumption to limit myself to four. Four times during the day: after lunch, afternoon snack, after dinner, evening snack. And only on appropriate holidays. Until November put a stop to it.

Fortunately for past me, the American capitalist snack-food industrial machine came up with multiple holiday-themed excuses to provide me with sugar-coated marshmallows in the shape of small birds, bunnies, skulls, ghosts, pumpkins, Frankenstein’s monsters, gingerbread men, Christmas trees, stockings, and snowmen. I’d definitely eaten more than my per capita allotment of Halloween-themed Peeps, which had, tragically, been my last.

At the moment, I was unwrapping those packages of Peeps to arrange artfully on plates and putting jelly beans in bowls. The jelly beanswerevegan, so I could at least eat those. Noah had insisted that we had to do a proper Easter dinner this year, with ham (although I wouldn’t be having any), scalloped potatoes (which I also wouldn’t have), roasted red potatoes, steamed asparagus, deviled eggs, a pea and pasta salad, herb-roasted carrots, lamb (also a no for me), a spring onion tart, and a smoked salmon tart, with carrot cake for dessert. Noah had invited a bunch of his friends, some from work and some from outside of work, and Lulu, of course, and had asked if I wanted to invite anybody.

Elliot was in Wisconsin, and Quincy was going to be at her boyfriend’s family’s house. I went with Hart, especially since Taavi was already invited, so I didn’t technically have to even issue an invitation. Just reconfirm one that had already been extended.

I had no idea where the hell we were going to put the fifteen people who were showing up, mind you, but that was Noah’s problem.