每日英语阅读：A Plate of Peas
My grandfather died when I was a small boy, and my grandmother started staying with us for about six months every year. She lived in a room that doubled as my father's office, which we referred to as "the back room." She carried with her a powerfularoma1. I don't know what kind of perfume she used, but it was the double-barreled, ninety-proof, knockdown, render-the-victim-unconscious, moose-killing variety. She kept it in a huge atomizer andapplied2it frequently and liberally. It was almost impossible to go into her room and remain breathing for any length of time. When she would leave the house to go spend six months with my Aunt Lillian, my mother and sisters would throw open all the windows, strip the bed, and take out the curtains and rugs. Then they would spend several days washing and airing things out, tryingfrantically3to make thepungent4odor go away.
This, then, was my grandmother at the time of theinfamous5pea incident.
It took place at the Biltmore Hotel, which, to my eight-year-old mind, was just about the fancies place to eat in all ofProvidence6. My grandmother, my mother, and I were having lunch after a morning spent shopping. I grandly ordered a salisbury steak, confident in the knowledge that beneath that fancy name was a good old hamburger withgravy7. When brought to the table, it was accompanied by a plate of peas. I do not like peas now. I did not like peas then. I have always hated peas. It is a complete mystery to me why anyone would voluntarily eat peas. I did not eat them at home. I did not eat them at restaurants. And I certainly was not about to eat them now. "Eat your peas," my grandmother said.
"Mother," said my mother in her warning voice. "He doesn't like peas. Leave him alone."
My grandmother did not reply, but there was a glint in her eye and a grim set to herjaw8that signaled she was not going to bethwarted9. She leaned in my direction, looked me in the eye, and uttered the fateful words that changed my life: "I'll pay you five dollars if you eat those peas."
I had absolutely no idea of theimpending10doom11. I only knew that five dollars was an enormous, nearly unimaginable amount of money, and as awful as peas were, only one plate of them stood between me and the possession of that five dollars. I began to force the wretched things down my throat.
My mother was livid. My grandmother had that self-satisfied look of someone who has thrown down an unbeatabletrump12card. "I can do what I want, Ellen, and you can't stop me." My mother glared at her mother. She glared at me. No one can glare like my mother. If there were a glaring Olympics, she wouldundoubtedly13win the gold medal.
I, of course, kept shoving peas down my throat. The glares made me nervous, and every single pea made me want to throw up, but the magical image of that five dollars floated before me, and I finally gagged down every last one of them. My grandmother handed me the five dollars with a flourish. My mother continued to glare in silence. And the episode ended. Or so I thought.
My grandmother left for Aunt Lillian's a few weeks later. That night, at dinner, my mother served two of my all-time favorite foods, meatloaf andmashed14potatoes. Along with them came a big, steaming bowl of peas. She offered me some peas, and I, in the very last moments of my innocent youth, declined. My motherfixed15me with a cold eye as she heaped a huge pile of peas onto my plate. Then came the words that were to haunt me for years.
"You ate them for money," she said. "You can eat them for love."
Oh, despair! Oh,devastation16! Now, too late, came the dawningrealization17that I had unwittingly damned myself to a hell from which there was no escape.
"You ate them for money. You can eat them for love."
What possible argument could Imuster18against that? There was none. Did I eat the peas? You bet I did. I ate them that day and every other time they were served thereafter. The five dollars were quickly spent. My grandmother passed away a few years later. But thelegacy19of the peas lived on, as it lives on to this day. If I so much as curl my lip when they are served (because, after all, I still hate thehorrid20little things), my mother repeats thedreaded21words one more time: "You ate them for money," she says. "You can eat them for love."
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