As a young child, I despised tomatoes. Unfortunately for me, however, my entire family was very fond of them. To my parent’s dismay, I would always decline when they offered me tomatoes in a sandwich or salad. It was hard for them to believe that tomatoes would render such a positive taste in their mouths, but not in a mouth engendered by them. Thus, they made it their goal to get me to like tomatoes; they were sure that my dislike for them was a fad that would soon wear off. They resorted to putting pureed tomatoes in my salads. But I outsmarted them: I would proceed to “disinfect” each individual piece of lettuce, each individual piece of cabbage, and each individual piece of spinach, with the precision of a neurosurgeon until there was no trace of tomato left on my salad. My hatred for tomatoes slowly became an integral part of my identity. I made friends and enemies over my opinions on tomatoes. During recess, I would sit on the bench and talk about tomatoes with my friends. Soon