A/n: Please remember you are my life-blood! Without your support I would never do this kind of thing. Thank you all for supporting turmnustite and all! I've grown so much under your care! Thanks.

May

Every evening, May would eat dinner with us. It was the one meal our family’s computer would eat. Because of May, we did not eat the tasty food more common to poor families. May couldn’t eat hotdogs and had to be on a “rigorous diet.” At age four, I was not sure what “rigorous” meant, but I knew it had something to do with why I wasn’t allowed to eat potatoe chips.

At school, I’d enviously stare at the less-well-to-do kids, wishing I too could eat all the snack-its and unhealthy food I wanted. The less-well-to-do kids rarely traded lunches with me— not even for apples.

Some times they would give me the wrapping papper and boxes for free. I’d keep these treasures hidden in my closet, especially mango soda pop cans because of the cute company mascots.

“You should feel lucky,” my mother often said to me. “Poor people have to eat lots of bad things and get unhealthy. They die quickly because of the foods they eat.” Knowing kids my age that ate junk food, I didn’t ever believe my mother. I suppose four is a little young to evaluate diet choices.

My dad tried to explain things better. He said, “Junk food makes you more hungry then you should be. You think you have to eat lots and lots. So if you eat Junk food, you eat even when you shouldn’t. Junk food is a drug , (a very bad thing), and it makes you want more and more. That’s not good.”

I asked May for her imput one dinner. She stared at me for a long time. “If I eat too much of anything, I’ll die. It’s the same for you.” Seeing my absent look of numb horror and confusion, May locked her eyes onto her plate and cleaned it off. She sat down in a chair without another word. She seemed to be thinking about my wishes to eat junkfood.

On my fifth birthday, May woke me up as usual, patting me on the shoulder gently. “It’s time to wake up,” she said happily. I woke up with the first alarm.

With the second alarm, she would use an angry voice, because she knew that scared me and I’d hop out of bed quickly. She was never really angry, my mom and dad assured me. She was only using her angry voice to get me to do something. I didn’t understand because May let my parents sleep in as late as they wanted. I thought she just didn’t like me.

“Happy Birthday, Moon,” May said. “Are you ready to eat breakfast?” We went on through the usual routine. I never expected anything to be different.

But when I left for school and checked what May had put in my lunch box, I found a mango soda. I couldn’t believe it. I had never been allowed to drink soda before.

I told my parents what May packed in my lunch box and even handed my mom the remnants of a can.

My parents had a fight. They said it wasn’t possible for May to leave the house or order anything without a signature. And neither of them, they claimed, had gotten me the soda. They had sworn that I would grow up in a healthy and clean environment, so how could the other have given me a soda on my birthday?! How dare they, after yelling at the other that time one bought me a popsicle, or for yelling at the other when they bought me an ice cream at the museum.

May took me out of the room the minute my parents began fighting. In my room, we played chess. She even let me win, just this once. Feeling cheeted, I called her on it.

“I could always win if I wanted to, but what fun would that be?” May asked. “I’m pretending to be a five year old girl. Is that OK? Or do you want to play a thirty year old man?”

I thought that was the strangest thing May had ever asked me. She asked me pretty strange questions day-to-day, but in my opinion this even topped “What do you like about the lights in your bedroom?”

“What?” I asked blankly.

“Do you want me to play easy so you can beat me, or do you want me to play hard?”

“Uh... easy,” I said, and I won every game we played that evening.

My parents felt really bad after having a fight on my birthday. We all sat down to dinner and I didn’t notice anything else but the presents my parents sat on the table.

All this time, my parents had been telling me that May only did things because of her programming. She didn’t feel anything. She was like that dinosaur robot pet they gave me when I was three. They both didn’t have emotions. They told me when I thought May didn’t like me, I was only making things up. When I thought she was sad, I was only imagining things.

But maybe the answer came in a mango soda can.