Pleased To Meet Me

The astounding observation came to me on Monday night. As part of a valiant if not somewhat callous attempt to distract myself from the constant thoughts of my imminent reunion with M3, I was making tea for a under-the-weather 26 year old and some hot cocoa for a strangely-all-of-a-sudden-very-nurturing me.

The water for J's tea was boiling. Removing the kettle from the burner with one hand, I adeptly reached into the fridge with my other hand to fetch the skinny pint of milk I was pretty sure I'd find wedged into the shelf on the door that isn't quite tall enough for a pint of milk to be wedged into.

I made a few ceremonial dunks of the tea bag into the steaming mug before passing it to the pathetic, sniffling boy perched on my counter. Then, having indeed located the milk, I filled a cup of my own and headed toward the microwave. The microwave that, in hindsight, I should never have accepted from M2 in the first place because something is inexplicably and very clearly wrong with a guy who gives appliances as gifts to someone he's been dating for three weeks. I don't care if you got a good deal at Costco. That's fucked.

Then, just as I swung open the microwave door, I noticed a funny smell.

Self, allow me to introduce you to someone.

This is Self.

In Self's former life, she could never comprehend why people would buy the small-sized milk. Or who those people were. Unless, of course, they were sold-out of the gallons or there was a coupon in the Safeway circular or you were, say, going on vacation in a few days. But in any other circumstance, the pint served as little more than a confusing representation of a life not being lived.

In Self's former life, she and the person with whom she used to share a home would routinely power through a gallon of milk in a matter of days. Milk would be turned into pudding, act as a cereal vehicle sometimes two or three times a day, morph into fancy desserts taken to fancy dinner parties.

In Self's former life, 20 days old milk was an abomination. Self would wonder why and how and in what unimaginable way could someone have so many distractions so as to be unaware that an item in one's fridge is currently taking on a life of its own?

In Self's former life, she most certainly wouldn't have put her nose in the vicinity of the carton, asked the boy still perched on her counter to read the expiration date aloud, laughed heartily, and then not realizing she'd done so until the 26 year old asked if she'd really done what he thought she'd just done, returned the carton to the shelf on the door that isn't quite tall enough for a pint of milk to be wedged into.

But that's exactly what Self did.

I think we're going to be fast friends.