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Every now and then around this time of year, I buy one of those four-packs of marshmallow chicks down at the drugstore. When I get home, I open it up and line the four of them along my kitchen counter. I pretend they are my children and give them names. After a few minutes of staring at my children I give them nicknames appropriate to their personalities. A little after that, I decide what their hobbies are and their aspirations for when they grow up. It's not much later that I've figured out who gets bullied by the others and who isn't doing so well in school. I reassure them that the world is actually a very nice place and that if they work hard and never give up they can be whatever they want to be.
Inevitably, my microwave procedes to call me Betty and personify itself as a cruel prehistoric god demanding tribute. Specifically, three of my children must be sacrificed that the other may live. I beg the microwave that he spare them.
"But they have so much to live for," I say, "Johnny's going to be a fireman and Susan's going to be a ballerina! Stinky may seem a little slow but I know he can become a doctor like he always wanted!" Alas, my microwave cannot be reasoned with and I must make the horrible decision, which of my children shall live or die. I don't know how I live with myself but I always choose.
Over the next hour, I start to resent the one that survived his brothers and sisters. I can't look at him without remembering the trusting expressions on their faces just before they expand to grotesque proportions brought on by the sadistic microwave-god. I maintain an reproachful silence before I finally explode, shouting at him, accusing him of selfishness, not understanding what his siblings and his father gave up so that he could live a good life. "Sluggo would have appreciated the loss had you gone in his place."
But no sooner do I finish before realizing the shame belongs to noone but myself. I pull him close to my breast in a loving embrace and vow that somehow we can find a better life where we can live free of the fear of tyranny. I gently lay him down in the napkin holder before stumbling off to bed.
The next morning I wake up to discover that in my drunken stupor I ate the last of my children and cry for three hours. |
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I spend the whole time pretending not to be drunk. No, I don't know why either.