一盘豌豆(A Plate of Peas)(2)

　　"you ate them for money," she said. "you can eat them for love."oh, despair! oh, devastation! now, too late, came the dawning realization that 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 i muster against 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 the legacy of 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 the horrid little things), my mother repeats the dreaded words one more time: "you ate them for money," she says. "you can eat them for love."