Two cups of sugar. One stick of butter. 10 pineapple slices. A little bit of this. A little bit of that. I watched as my mother prepared a magnificent pineapple upside down cake with no real recipe to guide her. She learned the measurements by the way the ingredients felt in her hands. I learned a lot of things by watching her in the kitchen. One of which was that trust is the only ingredient necessary for betrayal. I was five and kindergarten would start in the fall. I had one more summer at home with mom before everything would change. Life would start soon. Responsibilities began at five-years-old. Homework and the idea that things had to be learned on a timeframe determined by the state. Vaccines and backpacks and after-school activities would prepare me for jobs and mortgages and after-work drinks because what other after-work activities are there when you’re just working to survive until the next paycheck. Paycheck to paycheck to paycheck until you’re dead. Adults aren’t allowed to have recess so they have drinks instead. That’s what I learned watching my parents in the kitchen after work. Currently my mother pulled out a loaf of bread and examined two slices. Today it was ham sandwiches with chips and a juice box. If I finished all of that, I could have 3 cookies and I could take them to the swing set out back. Mom was the most important person in my world. I wanted everything she wanted. I loved everything she loved. I wanted to be her one day. Well dressed and educated, kind and helpful, tough and determined. She was my mom and in my five-year-old eyes she was perfect, except for when she said I couldn’t have cookies. Today I got three and took them outside. Oddly she followed closely to me and watched me intently today. I looked up at her and she looked as if someone had said something funny but no one had. I smiled at her and took her hand as I stuck an entire Oreo in my mouth. I was thrilled that she was so attentive to me. It was as if nothing else in the world mattered to her. Crunch. No. No. No. Something was wrong. Something oozed from the middle... a cold and slimy unnatural wad swelled from around the crunch of the cookies. My brain wasn’t computing what my mouth knew to be true. Abort mission! My mouth revolted and spit and gagged until I thought I might vomit. My entire body heaved. The slippery mess tasted remotely like my ham sandwich. White slimy globs in the grass beneath my feet shone with wetness of my spit. I couldn’t understand why Mom was laughing at my intense reaction to an obviously rotten Oreo. “It’s rotten, Mama!” Why was she laughing? I screamed and cried and wiped my mouth with the edge of my dress. Why was she laughing and not helping me? I looked up at her confused and still whimpering over the atrocity. “April fools,” she declared as she handed me another juice box. What? She did this to me? Mothers can lie to their own children? Does God even allow that? Was she laughing at my pain and suffering? I looked at the other imposter Oreos in the bag she had given me. The sunny warm day caused the mayonnaise to leak from them now. It was a ruse. I saw this now. She had meticulously scraped the cream from each cookie and replaced it with an ungodly white substitute. My own perfect mother (unless she said I couldn’t have cookies). Today she said I could have cookies but what I was actually served was not cookies. It was betrayal at the hand of my very own mother. What you will need for this specific betrayal is: 1 cup of mayonnaise, a handful of Oreos, and 5 years of unquestioning trust. A little bit of this. A little bit of that.