i'm eating Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch ice cream. I've been engrossed for a couple hours reading another new journal, and now the ice cream is almost completely melted. Even the chunks of candy are half dissolved. I have experience with melted Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch ice cream.
When Kenny and I lived together (as if we were ever a real couple) I accused him of fishing the candy chunks out of a similar pint of melted ice cream. It seems so ridiculous, and I have to laugh about it now, but for a long while, there was nothing from that time I could laugh about.
We lived in a rooming house, actually a gorgeous Victorian built in the days of rich mill owners and huge Catholic families. I derive great pleasure from remembering all the sucking and fucking we did in that house, built by the missionary-style parents of our whiney landlord. The jerk did let us stay there together for six months before he decided he didn't feel right about the arrangement. I had been paying through the nose so the prick would let Kenny stay there with me. Of course, that was the least of what my relationship with Kenny cost.
Like any Nineteenth Century home, 26 Beeching St had a dearth of electrical outlets. As a result, using the microwave in our room required unplugging the fridge. On the day of the melted ice cream, I'd been late for work (as usual) and had not plugged the fridge back in after hastily heating water for coffee; or was it tea back then? I've switched once or twice. Beverages, that is. Anyway, when I came home later, irritated and annoyed (it's a way of life), I had one consoling thought: the sweet, creamy, Heath Bar Crunch ice cream.
Kenny was there watching TV, but I exhibited no joy at our reunion, which was just one of the many things wrong with our relationship. I didn't appreciate that sweet little blonde nearly enough, but then I didn't appreciate myself at all. Still don't. I went for the fridge. I eagerly grabbed the little carton and hastily pulled off the cover, sending a wave of the gooey liquid over the edge of the container onto my hand. Ah ha! Another injustice to rage over! What else could possibly go wrong? (it's such a miserable way of life)
Pretty quickly I realized that the fridge had been left unplugged, but like a typical asshole, I concluded it was someone else's fault. Certainly someone else unplugged the fridge again after I left that morning, and—nobody has any consideration for me!—didn't bother to plug it back in. But here now, what's this! Where did all the candy go? Extensive probing of the thick liquid proved the candy was gone. Stolen!
kenny, the poor thing. We both suffered abuse in childhood, but I have seldom appreciated how damaging that abuse was for him; it's got to be why he was attracted to a monster like me. Of course, I could expound on his monstrosities, but that would be unbecoming, and vanity will be one of the last of my faculties to go.
I was thinking recently that I am getting a little looney. Not for any reason, in particular, but if I don't have some other crisis, then I try to convince myself I'm nuts. But ten years ago, unbelievably, I actually believed my boyfriend had maliciously strained out of my ice cream all of the candy chunks for himself. Compared to that, I am perfectly sane.
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