I’ve been uninspired for days.
It started when I discovered that I had only three kinds of mustard in the fridge.
I stood inside the open door, the cool air wafting over the ledge with the chocolate milk on it, past the sour cream, past the cellophaned, half-gone onion.
Blink. Blink-blink.
Yellow mustard, horseradish mustard, and stone-ground mustard.
“I don’t see the problem,” Willie says, peering into the refrigerator. He frowns slightly, scratches the back of his neck.
Willie also does not see the problem with, say, having only one color lipstick or one throw pillow on the couch.
“Well,” I say, “We’re having ringed bologna for dinner –“
“With au gratin potatoes?”
Now it is my turn to frown. “Yes,” I say.
Mmmm. Willie loves the ah-rottens. He grins. “So what’s the problem?”
I stare at him, shutting the fridge door.
“Oh,” he says, nodding. “You were going to mix them together, right? To make a new kind of mustard?”
I laugh.
“You can still do that,” he says. “Just change the percentages. Instead of a third of each, you could --“
I hold a hand up and he grins, leaves the kitchen with the beer he came in for.
Nothing is inspiring me lately. Not the unending clench of finding one’s self in the rather early stages of The Winter to End All Winters; not endearingly silly insights into the non-problem of not having a wide enough variety of mustard.
Still. I’ve always found condiments to be inspirational.
I open the fridge again.
I have all the time in the world.
And I’ll stand here as long as is necessary.