I had a rotten experience today when I went to lunch and was served a tuna salad sandwich rather than the chicken salad sandwich I had actually ordered.

Not only did it leave a horrible taste in my mouth for the rest of my lunch (and made me feel like I was going to be sick) but it launched me right back to nursery school where they used to force me to eat tuna fish sandwiches as well as egg salad sandwiches. I still to this day can't bring myself to eat either sandwich. Don't get me wrong, I love both tuna and egg, just not mashed up with tons of mayonnaise. Because Nicky the Fish sure does know how to cook up a mean slab of tuna and come to think of it, he also makes one of the best damn egg breakfasts I've ever had.

But that said, there's something so foul about trying to stomach something I used to be forced to eat when I was a kid. I've gotten over some of my food fears, like corn for example. My aunt used to make me eat it even though I gagged on several occasions at her dinner table when I was 6 (I know, I was a brat). But now it's one of my favourite foods.

As for tuna sandwiches and egg sandwiches, that just reminds me of pink gingham nap time covers, terry cloth bathing shorts (we all had to wear them in the "wading" pool), shared bathrooms (the boys peed into a long tub like urinal while the girls sat on potties directly behind them), the smell of cheap bleach, coloured milk (I guess milk in a rainbow of hues makes kids drink it. I was confused when I realised it doesn't always come that way), singing "The Poochie Lip Will Get You", my Bank of Bermuda pencil case that contained my Care Bear hair brush and comb, and, of course, hoping that the next sandwich on the lunch time tray would be peanut butter and jelly and not egg or tuna fish.

Yech.