A Road Less Travelled

So I was going to be all cool and nifty and write about last year. I was going to look back over the year and reflect about how the year had started and how I’d changed and grown. And then I was going to be only mostly cool and write about what I hope for this year. And then I was going to scrape by on the coolness meter and write about something I was thinking about. And then I cleaned out the refrigerator.

There is very little that sucks out one’s creative energy quite as much as figuring out if these green beans are from last week or the week before; trying to decide if these leftovers are past their prime and, if not, whether they’ll get eaten before they reach that point. There’s the joy of trying to fit the contents of this half-gone bottle of ketchup into that opened bottle of ketchup without asking anyone who ventures into my surrounding area why we have two open bottles of ketchup when one usually serves us just fine! I have to answer questions like should I consult Crystal or just do the family a favor and get rid of the months-old bottle of fish sauce everyone hated with an impressive passion? Do I mix the last dregs of spicy brown mustard with the dribbles of horseradish mustard, keep both bottles or get rid of one or the other? There’s the bottle of leftover coffee we were saving to make cold coffee drinks and the bottle of homemade syrup someone mistook for cold coffee and mixed with real coffee and then just put back when she discovered her mistake. Should we keep the coffee-syrup the grown-ups don’t want to eat and that we’re never going to give to the children lest their bodies explode with the stimulants? Or should I put it back in the fridge and hope someone else will have to make that decision like I did last time?

It’s these vital, life or death questions that swirl around my head and make all my creative words leak out my ears. Gone, gone, I say sadly and then go back to sniffing the mashed potatoes. Smells okay to me, but I could be wrong.