Finally. It’s lunchtime.
My stomach had spent the entire morning sloshing around in lukewarm coffee, preparing for this moment: when I open the refrigerator and extract something delicious to fill its growling hollow.
Alas! My stomach turns as I fling the door wide and stare blankly into the harsh light of the Frigidaire. The leftovers have been left over too long.
I open containers one by one and dump their contents into the trash. There is formality if not ceremony to this weekly ritual.
“Goodbye Thursday of last week. Pasta usually gets better with age, but not spaghetti so old its angel hair grows coarse and green.
So-long, Friday. Fish that smells like it’s gone long past the time to cut bait.
Farewell, plastic-wrapped thing that I don’t have the gumption to unravel. It may still be good, but the chance that it’s gross has better odds. I won’t take that wager.
The dog looks at me with Puss in Boots’ eyes: big and round and saucery … ready to spill liquid emotion.
Food waste.
I slip her a biscuit or five. Atoning for the lack of equality we humans have with our resident canines. How patently unfair it must be to watch hoooomans casually stuff their faces at will. Even the felines have figured out how to thwart the hinged lids on the food bins. They are not afraid to tip them over an eat to their heart’s content. If cats care about your feelings, they hide it with arbitrary hisses and scratches.
My stomach still mewls.
Maybe I’ll just have some crackers and cheese … that is if the little mice children haven’t already eaten them. I’ll know by the empty sleeve hanging from the weightless package in the cupboard.
I hope there’s still antibacterial cream left for when I require unguents for the knuckle graze I get from planning to lift a full box.
Siobhan Connally is a writer and photographer living in the Hudson Valley. Her column about family life appears weekly in print and online.
Siobhan Connally’s Ittybits & Pieces: Fast, fast, slow - Troy Record
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