An hour later, there goes my boyfriend to the bathroom. He shuts the door and there is a moment of silence; he later explained that he tried, but nothing could persuade him to urinate into that murky brown nightmare. So he flushes, and now I'm in the living room remembering what I'd forgotten, and I contemplate letting the joke ride out.
However, I know he is probably so mortified that his bladder has already begun to shut down forever, just a brick building below his stomach, so I call out, "H... hey. Did you have to flush anything?"
There is a pause, and then, like a lamb in headlights, he calls in a far-away voice, "...Yes..."*
He thought I was sick with the king of hostile ass-eating parasites, and said he loved me enough to plan on never mentioning it. How sweet and childlike his voice was in that moment. Cutie! He really, really didn't want me to know I was a monster.
It's hard to say whether I'll be self-conscious from now on ascending the stairs ahead of him. Does he view my backside any differently? Has it become a brand new canon in my body waiting to throw him down the stairs and bury him alive? I would never do that to him...
Luckily I have a history of wearing my underwear and/or eyeglasses to the shower, and walking three blocks to my car without realizing there's an inside-out Care Bears sock hugging my keychain. Shame on him for believing the explanation could be so logical as diarrhea in that toilet.
I asked about the milk patterns in the water; the last remnant of what I poured was dark syrup. When he flushed, a deep chocolate cloud ballooned up the center like a dragon's tongue reaching out for him. (yeah babe? was it like a dragon's tongue then? the groping hand of the devil?) I should ask if he almost cried.
Look how good he is to me, and all I do is give him grief.
I don't intend to be wasteful, the watermelon etc. I am just so unused to having anything to snack on and rarely visit the fridge. You know how at your parents' house you seem to be opening and closing the refrigerator door all day? You're not even rummaging for something to eat, your heart's not in it, for some reason we just have to do this and drive our mothers crazy. "MELISSA LOUISE."
There's a clockwork to the habit that doesn't quite translate into independent lifestyle. There are fanged dust mites wearing sheaths of my dead skin cells and swinging from the rafters of my pantry. The cupboard hinges are crusted shut from neglect, and the plates and silverware sing sad songs that keep me up at night.
That is actually an exaggeration. It is the godforsaken water heater that keeps me up all night -- and the first nemesis encountered in my book. You really, you just... the hate in my heart for that water heater...
I am incredibly lucky to have a mother who insists on supporting my food supply when she can now and again. I would have disintegrated sometime last March if it weren't for that woman. I have marathons of toast and salted pasta for weeks, and then suddenly I am feasting up to my elbows for seven long days on english muffins and salad and so many delicious apples. It doesn't sound right, does it? It feels so right.
Thanks mom! I'm your grown adult daughter! I plan to return the favor with everything I've got, it's half the reason I am so tenacious in the pursuit of my writing career. As my book continues to push freer and grittier boundaries, the swimming pool in the backyard of her mansion becomes bigger and bigger... If I leave in the bit about masturbation, I'll have to do something over-the-top. Adopt a highway in her name.
The point is don't ever ever buy soy milk because you'll never be brave enough to test it when you think it's gone bad, it's so much trickier than animal milk, which is courteous enough to curdle. That carton will be the elephant in the refrigerator for weeks, deterring you from ever eating again.
*I can't believe I made the cliche leap from past to present tense so fluidly. Only the baby boomers tell a story like that. "So she says, she says to the guy, she says."
