Pistachio pudding

It started as a simple errand: get some sugar and pectin to go with the raspberries that suddenly appeared on the kitchen table. Simple, right? We ended up in one of those disgusting big box stores that plague the suburbs, running pointlessly through a maze of aisles, the composition of which rarely made any sense.

Flour, baby food, garbage bags and salad dressing.
Canned goods, snacks, coffee and greeting cards.
Chocolate, shampoo, feminine hygeine products and cooking oil.
Ice cream toppings, energy drinks, breakfast cereal, and feather dusters.

The sugar took forever to find. So did the pectin. Shopping in those stores isn't supposed to be easy.

There is something very clever about the organization of these stores, something about the combination of fluorescent lighting and a million and a half aisles with all the products pushed neatly to the front. It was that something that reminded me of the real reason I had come. Pistachio pudding.

I hadn't had pistachio pudding for forever. I used to call it turtle pudding, and my mom would use the pudding mix to make chocolate covered Easter eggs that were incredibly delicious, even though they looked like little balls of shit.

You can get all the flavours either cooked or instant. That is, except for pistachio. I never figured out why pistachio only comes in instant. Maybe it's a conspiracy.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about instant pistachio pudding is how the powder comes out of the package blue, and turns green on contact with milk. Long before that Koolaid that changes colour when you mix it, kids like me had pistachio pudding. I whisked it up at a medium speed, just like it said on the box and soon we had way too much pudding, though that may have been intentional.

It wasn't long before my sister sloppily dropped some down her shirt, on her left breast. "Sorry Du, I'm not licking that off for you," I said, and she screamed and dropped to the floor. I can't believe how easy it is to upset her.