March 15, 2005
Flying Objects
It was like dating a poltergeist; something would set her off and then the air would be filled with missiles. One morning I woke up and she was throwing things at me from the bathroom. I sat up and she hit me in the eye with a can of shaving cream. I jumped out of bed and she tagged me on the back of the neck with a razor. I ran out of the apartment to the back alley. She stood on the balcony and threw medicine bottles, the pills coming down like fat blue raindrops. 'Clean up the fucking bathroom!' she yelled, by way of explanation.
It’s like in those cartoons where the woman is chasing after the man with a rolling-pin, only when it’s you getting hit with the kitchen utensils it doesn’t actually occur to you that you are that guy -– Andy Capp, or whatever –- you are the asshole in the checkered newsboy hat. That’s how relationships endure. That’s why we’re all here.
Once she threw a birthday cake at me. She had baked it herself, and then I said something stupid, and she threw the cake at my head, pan and all. I remember thinking: I’m going to miss that whizzing sound. Then I wiped the cake from my eyes and went out on the balcony to cool down.
update
I've gotten a few emails so I should mention that this is fictionish - not a cry for help or an announcement. When A hits you with the shaving cream can you stay down - that's why we're good together.
A
