Have you ever been overtaken with an insane, lustful rage? It’s the whiskey-in-hand, we-can’t-work-things-out, why-can’t-I-tell-her-how-I-feel, what-the-fuck-is-so-difficult-about-this-shit, burning-through-cigarettes kind of madness. It’s the sort of rage that leaves you pacing back and forth in the kitchen, thinking fake conversations in your head while your eyes just burn into nothing in particular. You just mumble things here and there thinking you’re an idiot and occasionally blurt out a coherent “fuck” or “damn it.” You only stop to pour your blessed whiskey into a shot glass, highball or mixing cup – whatever is clean at the moment. For whatever reason you feel trapped in that instant with nothing else in the world – it’s just you, the anger and the whiskey.
Now picture all of that, the ping-ponging, the muttering, the burning eyes, but without the alcohol. Picture instead that instead of a chilled, caramel-colored beverage, you’ve chosen a loaf of bread and a stick of butter as the outlet of your frustration.
You untwist the little tie or pull off that plastic square thing almost breaking it in half (which happens even in normal operating conditions I must add), and you tear into that loaf of bread piece by flaky piece. You have your knife and you viciously slice into that stick of soft butter over and over again, smearing it across the bread. All the while you seethe and pace and think “what the fuck” as you bite off a piece of bread and continue on your way. Picture doing this for twenty minutes.
That was my Sunday night.
I didn’t write it into my calendar. I didn’t need to finish the loaf before it all went moldy. I wasn’t even that hungry. I thought to myself: “I should go find a snack and make some coffee.” It was that innocent. I get the coffee brewing. I start peering into the fridge, and while I’m in there something just snaps. It was this out-of-nowhere, visceral, what-the-fuck-is-so-goddamned-wrong-with-me outburst.
I’ve been single for a few months now, nothing major mind you, but I think it’s starting to take its toll. Couple that with coming out of an on-again, fuck-off-again relationship. Couple that with having contact with the ex again. Couple that with realizing how it will never work between the two of us. Couple that with having no real prospects and being complete shit at meeting women. When you put that all together, you can see why it might be maddening. But bread and butter?
I can’t justify it. There’s nothing about the bread that held any particular sentiment. I’m not some closet bread fetishist. It was just stupid happenstance.
Although I think I had better figure out this relationship bullshit soon before I find myself pouting over some chips and salsa.
