The Battle in My Kitchen

I've done it! I've figured out what I want for dinner! And for those of you who think this is an easy task, you have not seen me in front of my refrigerator the past two days, grumbling at the selection. It's a reasonable selection, a well-stocked selection, but I DON'T WANT ANY OF IT. It's similar to what I experience every morning in my overflowing closet, where, despite the crowding, there are no actual clothes to wear. I've worn them all and now I hate them all. The same thing is happening in my cupboards: I've tasted everything here. I don't want it anymore. It's stupid food and I hate it.

Until tonight. The bus dropped me off in front of the Green Earth corner store and I wandered in, hoping to find inspiration for $3.23 or less given the funds in my lint-filled pockets. As I strolled about, fingering the organic cheese I couldn't afford, bypassing the vegetable section entirely and heading for the grain-fed beef, I saw it: DINNER. It was like a chorus of heavenly angels started singing as a ray of light beamed down. On my strawberries. The green plastic basket whispered my name as the lush redness beckoned me. "Add some aged balsamic and brown sugar, Rona," they whispered. "And don't forget the greek yogurt!" "I don't have enough MONEY for the greek yogurt, strawberries." "DO IT, Rona."

And so I obeyed the voices of my berries, and knowing full well I did not have enough for my purchase, I placed everything down on the counter. Change scattered as I pulled out every last penny from my messenger bag trying to make it work. And like I told the strawberries, I was $0.35 too short. "Stupid berries," I muttered, startling the old Greek owner of the store who was ringing me up. Perhaps it was pity, or perhaps it was fear of the girl speaking to her fruit, but in his halting English, he said, "You pay the rest later. Thirty five cents." Pressing the yogurt into my hands: "I will forget. You remember."

And so dinner was decided.