Let It Go

I fish the soup can out of the trash and look at the bottom: Use By 2012. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me? I had kept that soup in my desk drawer in case of an emergency, but just forgetting to bring bread for my peanut butter sandwich was hard to classify as an emergency. So, needless to say the soup had been in there a while, but not since 2012, assuredly.


Why did I have soup that old? Because that wasn't the first time I'd dug it out of the trash. In my memory I'm a caricature of myself, holding the can of soup up at my wife and demanding to know why she was throwing food away.


"This is fine!" I said, while sleeving dust off the top of it. I mean, canned food can't go bad, can it? I've never really bothered to find out. I was really just relying on Cormac McCarthy books for my canned-food hypothesis.


These are all thoughts dripping into my brain as I walk across the parking lot to my car, trying to remember how many actual spoonfulls of the soup I had consumed before the astral image of my wife, with the Masters in Public Health & Safety, told me to check the date. I should have known it was a bad idea to go ahead and heat it up, upon seeing that the contents of the can and the water had separated. I'd never seen that before in something I was about to consume, wood varnish, maybe. But honestly I didn't think anything about it until back at my desk, I was masticating what was once, and I'm guessing here, part of an animal.


If I can get to my car and get home then I think I'll be ok. My plan is to smother the bad stuff with whatever good stuff is at the house. The astral image of my wife appears again, this time she's wondering how she let herself become trapped in a marriage with such an idiot.


My tongue feels thick and I'm wondering if I'm doing this to myself, that there really wasn't anything wrong with the soup, I'm just over-reacting.


I should really learn to let go. My wife probably waits until I'm asleep to throw old soup away now. Or tells me, when headed out to some event, that the admission is canned-food, knowing that I'll spend cream-of-chicken any day, rather than actually paying money.


I get home and find some left-over meatloaf in the fridge, Thank God. Shoving these shingles of meat into my stomach should...do something, avert something, and it does. Actually, I can't say for sure that I was ever going to be sick, but I feel better anyways.


I should learn from this lesson.


But I don't.


I should now make better choices about the food I consume.


I don't.


Later that night my wife offers our youngest a small cup of milk. It's a cute Red Solo Cup that has the dimensions of a shot glass and she's trying to teach Layla how to drink from it. Also, she's been introducing whole milk to Layla, as soon it will be time to transition her away from the bottle and formula.


But, it's clear that Layla isn't interested in drinking the milk from the solo cup tonight, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let her protesting-left-arm-fanning-flames move knock it all over the place. Seriously. Kid.


So I shrug and take the little cup over to the sink, and I'm about to pour it out when I am seized by the total horror or wasting that tiny amount of milk. I mean, we never even have whole milk in the house. Well, like I said, I'll be damned.


As the milk cascades into my mouth and down my throat, my mind scrambles for What in the FUCK Just FUCKING Happened Jesus God! I look into the cup, heart pounding and extremities closing down for good. That was not, was not milk, whole or any other variety. Then I Bruce-Willis-Is-Dead-at-the-Ended that my wife had not been giving our youngest straight whole milk, but just a little bit of milk mixed in with her formula.


The revulsion was ravishing and complete. I've never seen anyone on any show being forced to drink baby formula, except maybe a baby. Drinking that formula made me think we were in some weird Scientologist cult and we were totally fucking up our children.


 My wife assures me we are not. After she consults with the Master.


Just kidding about that last part.


So this entire day was a lesson in letting go.


Right? I can deal with that, loud and clear, universe.


Now maybe I can let my mom off the hook for telling everyone at Thanksgiving dinner that she didn't like my child's name.


Well. I'll work on it.