skullfire

Hey, guys. I haven't been here forever. Been in a funk. Creatively, anyway. Kind of lost my zest for writing, temporarily. This is the first quasi complete thing I've written in months and I feel compelled to post.

-The Receipt-

In the shower Kathleen doesn’t think about the supermarket receipt that’s downstairs on her dining room table. She’s too busy figuring out how to open her brand new bottle of body wash, Kiwi-Cucumber Mist with Aloe. The water is comfortably hot, the lights are off, and she plans on being a while.

And she sings, “You take the good with the bad, dadi dada dadi dada…”

In the shower Kathleen doesn’t think about the balance in her and Tom’s checking account. She doesn’t fret about which transactions will clear first, their paychecks or their mortgage. In the shower she doesn’t worry if she’ll be in the red or the black by the time she dries off.

Later she’ll carefully analyze the receipt as she eats her morning bowl of organic cereal. She’ll curse the supermarket for itemizing it. She’ll want to call to their corporate headquarters and ask why the hell they find it necessary to group and subtotal like items. Grocery, produce, household, miscellaneous. Miscellaneous? Might as well print ‘Superfluous Bullshit.’

Now though, instead of “Miscellaneous Subtotal – 59.87,” Kathleen reads, “World renowned cosmetologist Klaus Von Schrieffer has scoured the globe to bring you only the most exotic botanicals, used for centuries by indigenous cultures to awaken the spirit and stimulate the mind. Uniquely combined, these compounds and nutrients will alternately soothe and exfoliate your skin to allow your body to breathe like it never has before.”

“You take the good, you take the bad, hmhm hm hm hmhm hm hm…Eight syllables?”

Later Kathleen will call her mother. She’ll wonder aloud, “And where the hell did he find a highlighter anyway?” Her mother will manage to calm her down. And she’ll listen as Kathleen prepares her defense. Those glossy magazines provide a plethora of household tips and recipes. Does Tom want plain old chicken every night, or might he want to try something new every once in a while? She’ll insist he did enjoy that Caribbean dish the other night, courtesy of Food and Wine.

“You’re not helping,” she’ll say when her mother tells her the same recipes are online for free. “What else? Oh, a new can opener: 5.99, on sale. Well, the electric one (and of course it’s from his mother), it barely works and it’s impossible to keep clean. Buy cheap; buy twice.”

“You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, da di da da…And there you’ve got? Hmm.”

Tomorrow, Kathleen will wake up in bed alone. Downstairs, on the dining room table, she’ll find Tom’s highlighter, along with a legal notepad and a pile of bills. She’ll pick up the adding machine off the floor and realize although it’s broken, it still displays the last figure entered: 59.87.

Tomorrow, Kathleen won’t be in the mood for a shower, but she’ll take one anyway. Only she won’t use her Cucumber and Aloe Mist. No, she’ll use Tom’s bar soap. She’ll use it, even though she knows it’ll make her smell like the Holiday Inn. This time, the water will barely be lukewarm, the lights will be bright and buzzing, and she’ll only be in there for a few minutes.

And she’ll quietly sing, “You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have, the facts of life….The facts of life….”

Kangfish

I like it, in an odd sort of way. I like how you keep revisiting her song. It gives it a musical aspect. Very true-to-life, very cool.