I ate the carob.

Remember going to Jewish day school in the States?

Remember Tu B’Shvat back then? You were kinda like, wtf is this? But we get to draw trees and make tissue paper flowers, ok. We sing happy birthday to nature and best of all, we get to take home a lil plastic baggie of dried fruit.

You’d open the bag with all your friends on the way out of school, or on the bus. Maybe it was even before that, we’d all do the bracha together.

Raisins, apricots, a couple nuts. And, oh right – carob.

This foreign, hard, weird thing. It’s all the way from Israel! they’d tell you. Uh huh. What do you want me to do with it?

Everyone would say ew or do you want mine? No one would eat it. No one.

I’d get home, show my mom the bag, put my books down. Then – my curiosity would get the best of me. And I would eat it.

Yes, I ate the carob.