Growing up in my house, there was a very well known event that haunted me. It was the Olive Sandwich Rite of Passage.

I knew about this from the time I was small. In order to “leave home” for college, my sister and I would have to eat an olive sandwich. Sounds harmless, right?

Wondering what an olive sandwich in my house consists of? White bread, gobs of mayonnaise and sliced green olives with pimientos. Again, sounds harmless.

UNLESS YOU DON’T LIKE MAYONNAISE, OLIVES OR SANDWICHES!

Yup. That’s me. I’m anti-all-things-olive-sandwich. But still. To leave home to go to my beloved Auburn University in the summer of ’94 (yes, I’m that old), I was going to have to eat one of these.

I dreaded it for a good decade. Every time my dad would make one for himself for lunch, I would die a little inside and throw up a little in my mouth. I knew my time was coming.

Would it be overly-dramatic to say I contemplated not going to college just to avoid this rite of passage? Probably, huh? Yeah. It’d be a lie, too. I couldn’t wait for the freedom of hanging on The Plains.

Set the scene:

My car is packed. My roommate and I have our matching sunflower bedding and a shitload of other sunflower accessories to make our dorm room look like a garden of awesome! I’m in my homemade cut off jean shorts and an oversized t-shirt and my hair was probably in some awesome do. I was fabulous.

And there on the table was THE SANDWICH.

The bread-mayonnaise-olive sandwich of doom.

And I did just what you figure I would do.

I took one bite and promptly threw up. It was glorious.

I passed the rite of passage and I’m sure they couldn’t get me out of the house fast enough at that point.