the big macaroni

It was a big piece of macaroni, bigger than any piece of macaroni she had ever seen before.  And there it was, in the middle of her plate amongst all the normal macaronis served to her at a fancy restaurant where she sat having met her fiancé’s parents for the first time.  She looked around and noticed that no one else had any big macaronis on their plate and that no one else had even ordered macaroni.  They ordered things like chicken and steak but she had to have macaroni. “I always have to have macaroni!” she thought to herself and now, seeing where her incessant craving for macaroni got her, she wondered why. She was embarrassed, confused and not sure of what to do. She had never read any instructions in any social etiquette books or manuals that ever said anything about what to do when confronted with an enormously large macaroni whilst dining with future in-laws for the first time. “How could this glaring oversight have been missed by all the books and manuals?” she wondered to herself as a nervousness crept up from her stomach, nearly closing her throat.  Before she completely lost herself in the thoughts of her predicament, her finance’s mother asked her, in what seemed to be a slightly condescending tone, “are you alright dear?”. It was a tone that she despised and it triggered something in her that felt primal but so very right.  She inhaled deeply, forked the big macaroni and with a smile said, “Yes, I am fine. Just fine.” and then began to eat the big macaroni without any shame at all.