Yeah, NOT a kid's movie.

Last night was an interesting night. The ranks gathered for TT and the jokes about yesterday's post were flying. One of the attendees hadn't had a chance to read the post (hey, at least someone's working at work) and so Kim decided to read the post aloud in the kitchen as we finished cooking.

I'll admit, I've never heard my work read aloud in a non-workshop setting. It was slightly unnerving. It was also a little exhilerating. It made me sort of feel like a real writer. Everyone laughed in just the right places, moments were relived, and some even clapped when it was done. I self-consciously stirred the beans and occupied myself with serving up dinner, but was secretly a little bit pleased.

We ate, talked, and confessed, and eventually the crowd dispersed and I was left in the kitchen with Leanna and Katie. Leanna was cooking up a storm, as usual, and I was trying to learn by observing, as usual. Leanna cooks with lots of different vegetables, which I love. Last night she pulled out these:

Radishes.

I have an irrational confession to make, and it deals with radishes. It's not that I don't like them--I can't actually remember the last time I ate one (I was maybe 7?)--but they scare me. I know. Who gets scared of vegetables, right? Well. Hi. My name's Julie.

I decided I hadn't really confessed to anything earlier in the evening, and I've always kind of wanted to have this fear quelled, so I decided to share:

"So...I've always been a little bit afraid of radishes." [Leanna paused in cooking and Katie looked straight at me, ready for a good confession.] "I know this sounds weird but one of my earliest childhood memories involves a movie, and in it there's this woman who's pregnant and I think she craves radishes and --" I paused, uncertain I wanted to continue. Why? Well, other than the fact that it is ridiculous to feel the way I do about a vegetable, I've always been afraid that it's been a made-up memory, and yet it has seriously governed my feelings towards radishes. (And dreams, come to think of it.) That's when Katie chimed in with "--and her husband goes out to the garden to get them for her?"

Relief washed over me. The memory was real!

"Yes!! That's it!! And then something totally creepy happens in the garden and it's dark and then she can't eat the radishes for some reason and...and...I don't remember what else!"

Neither one of us could remember the movie's name or what it was even about, but we both had the same memories of the movie. I was convinced it was some horror/thriller movie that I had inadvertently walked in on my brothers watching. Anyway, the scene in the garden was so traumatizing that I have avoided radishes my whole life. I know. It's ridiculous.

Want to know what's even more ridiculous? I got up this morning, still thinking about how I felt like a missing piece of my life's puzzle had been found, and decided to google a few terms ("radish husband garden movie") to see if I couldn't locate the movie that scarred me so badly. Yeah. Not a horror film.

Rapunzel.

With Jeff Bridges.

What?!

I opened the synopsis and was horrified to relive this memory that was so traumatic at 3 or 4 or however old I was. Sure enough, there in the synopsis was the dream, the radishes, the garden, the WITCH, the baby-stealing, everything. I don't remember this movie having anything to do with Rapunzel. I just remember the dream. And the radishes. And the husband. And the garden. And the creepy thing that happened in the garden. And BAM! Just like that, at the tender age of toddler was born a fear of radishes. Not of witches, or baby-stealing, or gardens. Radishes .

Yeah. Not a kid's movie.