Bad Habit

01/06/12

The smell of burning food brought her back to the world. She had been staring out the window in her kitchen, but she was a thousand miles away, somewhere warm and sunny. She pulled the frying pan off the burner mumbling softly to herself, “oh, sorry, sorry, shoot, I’m sorry”. She had a real bad habit of saying sorry; she really should work on that. As she put the well-done food on the plate, and added the vegetables and potatoes, she thought she could remember a time when she wasn’t sorry. She remembered when she was young and confident, and felt like she had a place in the world. As she brought the plate of food into the dining room she sighed. Seems like these days she’s sorry for the air she breathing. Just as she is about to put the plate on the table her fat little dauchsand shot out from under the table, excited by the food smell, and got tangled in her feet. She went down hard, the plate flying from her hand in slow motion, like a Frisbee, stopping only as it hit his lap. Then it tumbled over itself twice before smashing against the wall.
“Oh! ‘She piped,’ I’m sorry! It was an accident I’m so sorry!”
Still lying on the floor she looked up at him with apprehension. She did not like what she saw. There was a storm brewing in his face. His eyebrows were low over his squinty eyes, his lips pulled back in a snarl.
He took a big breath and exploded, “Dammit Lila! Can’t you do anything right? All I wanted was a little bit of dinner. Is that too much for a man to ask for?”
He wiped the steak and potatoes off his lap then he picked up his beer and swigged down the last drop. Lila got up off the floor, punctuating his outburst with sorries, thinking the whole time,’ this is a really bad habit; I’ve got to stop apologizing’.
“Now, You go get me another beer, fix me another plate”, he said, ticking off items on his fingers, “ and dammit Lila! You apologize for ruining my dinner”
“Ok, sorry,’ She said,” I’m sorry for ruining your dinner!”.
To herself she thought, Bad habit, I need to stop apologizing. Then she felt something inside her break lose. The spilled dinner was just an accident after all, not really her fault. Lila was done apologizing. She went back into the kitchen and got a Coors out of the fridge. She popped the top and took a long pull. Then she went to the cookie jar and retrieved her gun from its depth. She smoothed its warm barrel against her cheek. The gun smelt faintly of chocolate chip cookies. Lila took another swig of the beer and sauntered into the dining room.
‘That didn’t take long’, He said, licking his lips as he saw the cold beer, “ Now Lila, where’s my dinner?”
Lila brought her arm from around her back and pointed the gun right at his forehead, and then she pulled the trigger. The dauschsand yelped in surprise. He looked surprised too. Now his eyebrows are peaked, eye wide open, his mouth a round little o of pure wonderment.
“Oh!”, Lila whispered’ “ Sorry! So sorry!”, and on the heels of that, ‘Dammit, that is a bad habit saying sorry like that I’ve got to stop it!”
Lila wiped the gun off and put it back in the cookie jar. She threw a few things into a bag, grabbed the dog, got in the truck and she headed south. To somewhere warm, where there was water, where she wouldn’t be sorry anymore.