I didn't eat whipped cream for years because I positively KNEW that it would make me sick. This wasn't too much of a hardship, because my family didn't keep the stuff in the refrigerator, it was reserved for special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. But whenever the pie was being served, I would always take mine without that particular topping (sometimes, however, I would splurge and go a la mode).
For twenty years I ate pumpkin pie without whipped cream, ordered ice cream cones instead of banana splits, and drank hot chocolate with only a few marshmellows. All of this because I never forgot the last time I had had the stuff, at a Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmother's house when I was around six or seven years old, where I spent some time in the bathroom afterwards losing the entire meal.
A couple of years ago, my sister-in-law asked me why I never had whipped cream on my dessert. I told her the story, ending with the part where I threw up after eating the pie with the offending topping. My brother got this funny look on his face, shook his head, and set the record straight.
"Uncle G. was slipping you beer the whole night." he said, "THAT'S why you threw up."
He was absolutely right. And it all came rushing back. I had totally forgotten that, while I was playing on the floor around the dinner table, Uncle G. had been slipping me drinks out of his glass. I didn't know what the stuff was. He seemed to get a big kick out of the whole thing. I never made the connection that it was beer. When we had dessert later, and I threw up, I just blamed it on the one thing I'd eaten that was not part of my diet on a regular basis: whipped cream. I don't think I realized, at that point in my life, that something you drank could make you throw up.
So for the next twenty years I faithfully adhered to the lesson I learned that night. It's too bad it was the wrong lesson.
