{"id":1343,"date":"2025-08-18T02:14:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T02:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/?p=1343"},"modified":"2025-08-18T02:14:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T02:14:25","slug":"continuation-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/?p=1343","title":{"rendered":"Continuation…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I was a kid, Mom used to make a dish called \u201ccheesy mashed potatoes.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was my favorite.
Smooth, creamy, and this perfect golden-orange color. She told me it was mashed potatoes with cheddar cheese \u2014 and in my innocent little brain, I thought, “Wow, Mom\u2019s a gourmet genius.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would beg for it every week.
I told my friends at school about it. I even wrote a poem about it in second grade.
“Cheesy mash is the best, better than all the rest…”<\/strong>
It won first place in a classroom contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt proud<\/em>.
Special.
Loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later, as a teenager, I was walking past the kitchen when I overheard Mom talking to my aunt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She laughed and said:
“Oh yeah, he used to gobble those up. All I did was mix instant mashed potatoes with a jar of baby food carrots. Told him it was cheddar cheese \u2014 little sucker believed it!”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stood frozen in the hallway.
Not because I was mad… but because in that moment, my entire childhood collapsed like a house of over-boiled potatoes.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t cheese.
It was baby food.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not just any<\/em> baby food \u2014 carrots.<\/strong>
The one vegetable I refused to eat. The one I swore tasted like sadness and disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She had tricked me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mom, the woman I trusted with my life, had fed me lies with a spoon<\/em> and called it dinner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid, Mom used to make a dish called \u201ccheesy mashed potatoes.\u201d It was my favorite.Smooth, creamy, and this perfect golden-orange color. She told… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}