It was not that Sam didn’t appreciate his mom cooking a nutritious meal, but why did she feel the need to mash everything to death and present the meal in the shape of a clown or something which was supposed to resemble some sort of farm animal?

He was too embarrassed to bring friends home as the last time he did he was ridiculed for weeks afterwards. Sam had told his mom on many occasions that at 25 years of age he no longer needed his food presented in this way. His mom would just smile, pat his face, and say, “As long as you are at home you will always be my little boy.” 

This was his moms subtle way of saying, “isn’t it time you moved out?”

© 2007 Brenda Tessier. Original for CCF (Tessier grants CCF first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).