Since I began my blog project Bare Ass 2008! I have lost sixteen pounds and raised $1090 for America’s Second Harvest. The single hardest yet most valuable thing that I have learned so far is to stop eating after 7 p.m. Every person is different, but I am a huge nighttime recreational eater and maintaining this gastric curfew is a key for my weight loss success. However, every night my brain can’t stop thinking about food. Realizing how quickly this can slide to obsession, I decided to think of the non-food items in my kitchen. Then I started imagining about the tiny kitchen lives of these inanimate folks and wondered who would be the most unlikely pair to fall in love? Thus a little piece I like to call “The hidden affair between Potato Masher and Gravy Boat” was born. Save the story for tonight if you like, and read it after 7 p.m. instead of whatever you usually reach for.
Part I: Thanksgiving clean-up
Setting: A Hot Sudsy Sink
The water’s greasy. Don’t you think?
What a silly thing to say. But she is nervous. It vibrates her core. If she wasn’t dunked in water, she knows she would be hot to the touch.
Come closer while we have the chance.
He is not. Nervous that is. She slides into him. The water is scalding. Is it her? Suds lather luxuriously. Lather luxuriously, she likes that. The warm soapy water pushes her further into him. She clicks her curves against his smooth inner walls. He is cool despite the ever-rising temperature of the water submersing them.
I’ve missed you.
You look lovely.
Hardly—there are bits of peel still clinging to her handle. Her cheap rubber handle, so utilitarian. So unlike him. Porcelain fruit-embossed skin that shines, begging to be stroked, polished, displayed. There is a tiny chunk of potato caught in her lattice. She can smell it and hopes she is scrubbed better this time. Prays he doesn’t notice. But now is not the time for these thoughts. They only have the briefest moments. Rubber hands grab and probe; work steadily on Daisy Casserole. But that will only bide so much time.
He is bound to Serving Plate. A matched set, he has no choice in the matter. That is what he tells her, at least. Who is she to argue? Nothing but a drawer dweller, she waits to catch a glimpse of him in the hutch. Before she is shut back into darkness with Serving Fork forever getting himself caught up in her, a little too conveniently, she thinks.
The hands come separating them. Not now, it’s too soon!
I won’t leave you.
Darling it’s time.
She fights and gets caught in his delicate opening she somehow found so easy to slip into. A subtle clink. The faintest CRACK. Her heart rips open at the sound. The chip is barely perceptible, but to her it is disaster. She proves nothing but a destroyer yet again. He will hate her now. Their time is over. What will she have to look forward to, but for these festive days that allow them the briefest stolen moments?
I’m so sorry.
His graceful neck arches up towards her before he disappears beneath the foam.
You always hurt the one you love.
A joke to take with her into the darkness. Stay tuned...
Help me raise money and awareness for hunger relief while I strive to overcome lifelong food and body image issues. Ashamed at being unable to control my eating, I decided cleaning my plate wasn’t helping starving children anywhere but there are positive things I can do every day to help end hunger and inspire myself to be healthy. If you’d like to donate towards my goal, click here.