An aversion to stringy foods came as naturally as covering her mouth as she daintily sneezed. Even as an adult, she refused to peel her own banana.
“It’s double string,” she told Augden. “First the thick, flubbery kind on the outside, that flop about when you pull them down. And then, and I’m not sure if this is better or worse, the lithe, springy strings on the fruit itself.”
She also gracefully declined celery, claiming its anti-caloric content was bad for her brain, but it was really the wispy skin that slid between her teeth which she found abhorrent. Their daughter suffered as a result, never experiencing ants-on-a-log, a quintessential childhood snack.
And string cheese? Another no-go.
“There was this girl in grade school, Kayla Green, who ate string cheese for lunch daily. She always slurped it like spaghetti, and looked like she had lizard tails dangling from her lips,” she relayed to Augden.

The image of a tiny girl munching on lizards made it impossible to sleep that night.