The Candy Bar Wrapper

 17 years old

She sat down in the kitchen frustrated. 

She was hungry. 

She now had WIC and they brought so much baby cereal for the two babies that there was always plenty left when they brought more, so...she started eating it too. 

Sometimes she had milk and sugar to put in it but other times she didn't.  This was one of those times.

She tried water. 

It was terrible.  But, it was food. 

It was during this time that she started passing out. She would lift her head up and BOOM...down she would go. 

But, she was so used to not having food now that she really didn't think about it much. 

The passing out thing troubled her. She didn't know why it was happening.  She didn't have anyone to ask. 

One day she had some change and decided to take the city bus to the hospital to see if she was sick.

She wondered how she would carry two babies on a bus. They both had umbrella strollers. She sat and looked at them thinking. And she pulled one of her shoe strings out of her shoe and tied the strollers together.  Yes!  It worked.

She pushed them down to the bus stop and managed to get both of them and their strollers on the bus. And, off they went to the hospital. 

She went to the emergency room and told the lady there that she wanted to be seen. The lady asked what was wrong. The teen told her that she kept passing out. 

The lady said, "do your lamps talk to you?"

The girl said, "no".

"Do any of your other furniture talk to you?" 

The girl said "no".

"I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do to help you."

The girl was dumbfounded. 

She pushed the babies back to the bus stop and went home. 

At least she got to get out of the house. 

She always got so lonely. 

Her husband was late getting home from work every night. 

She would sit with the kids at the living room window watching for him. 

When he did finally come home he didn't even look her way. He was interested in the TV and nothing else.  

There was no chance of anymore babies any time soon. He said that her pubic bone protruded and hurt him so he wasn't interested in her anymore.  

The teen had a chocolate brown playpen couch though. It was used but the girl thought that she was really living the high life with that couch. 

But, she had an awakening one day.....

Her husband was wanting to go somewhere and he was taking her and the kids with him. She rarely left the house unless she walked pushing the two strollers. 

She went out to the car and slid into the Plymouth Fury. And, in the cup holder was a coffee cup! And, in the floorboard was a candy bar wrapper. Her mouth watered. A candy bar. How many years now since she had tasted a candy bar?

That was when it all clicked. 

When he left the house....he was eating.  He even ate candy bars!

She felt anger. 

She didn't say anything though. She never did. 

But the realization that she was the only one not eating had her emotions go crazy. 

She didn't know it at the time but she was at least 35 lbs underweight. 

Was it her age or the lack of nourishment that caused her to believe that all of this was normal? 

It was the coffee cup and the candy bar wrapper that opened her eyes.