Since the days of rinsing my homestay hosts came to an end, I decided it was a good idea to accept the invite to crash at my girlfriend's place while I look for more volunteer work. Except here, I'd be a stand up roomie. She'd not even know I was here. I'd be the flea on the dog, so to speak, except that that's not a good analogy because Tines (pronounced like Denise but with a 'T') is a beautiful archangel and I was not trying to suck her blood, so forget that. I'd be a ninja to her night. That's better.
But this morning, I woke up oblivious to the monumental horror that was about to happen to me; much like the Titanic before it got redesigned by that sancrimonious iceberg in the Atlantic.
About all I can manage for the first half an hour of being awake is a little bit of time checking emails and annoying facebook quips about iphones and children, which tend to make me more or less happy that I don't have kids, or an Apple product.
So, after much stretching and yawning and feeling disappointed that I didn't laugh in my sleep this morning about a dream made up entirely of Ricky Gervais' face (as I had done the day before), I clobbered my way to the kitchen to find coffee.
For some reason, instead of going for the coffee-making accouturements, I decided that toast would be best. This, in hindsight, was a mistake.
As I pulled at the bread packet, I didn't realise that the corner of the packet was sitting underneath the sugar jar.
Time began to slow as the jar tumbled through the air.
Now, I have quite an impressive reflex for catching falling objects with my feet. I don't mean between my toes. I just mean to break their fall, you know, so they don't go smashy. Well, it turns out that my reflexes are still quite good because I decided in that split second that catching the jar full of heavy sugar with my bare foot would be a bad idea. (I didn't think about how impressive that was until at least an hour later when the sadness had worn off a bit. I'm just saying.)
The jar smashed into a million tiny [about eight large] pieces.
Shit.
I stared at the white sugar mountain that lay on the bare wood floor, horrified that I'd become immediately dispensable as a human being and began to consider my options. I could run away to Cuba. I could wait till she gets home and lie on the floor next to the scene and pretend I don't remember anything, or maybe something to do with Restless Leg Syndrome?
The problem was, that this sugar jar was pretty and white with an easy-fit lid, unlike other sugar jars that require Schwarzenegger finger-strength to prize the suction lids off. I hate those, and frequently want to murder the pets of the designer who made them.
At this point in the story, you probably think I am a bit 'special' for caring about clayware, and you'd be right. However, it represented something way more sentimental. Tines bought the jar when she first moved to Auckland during those first few doubtful days – with her first paycheck, five years ago. I couldn't replace it either because the shop didn't exist anymore.
This was no mere sugar jar. It was the essense of independence, standing on one's own two feet, and of simplicity. It was the holy grail.
Unhappy with the idea of moving to Cuba, I tried to figure out the best thing to do that would result in the least amount of condemnation.
I was home alone. Tines was at the place normal adults go to in the daytime called work. So, rather than go on a journey to bring her the sweet, shattered remnants of her sense of home and mental foundations, I decided a text would be a good idea.
Texting can be apologetic.
There was at least another nine hours before she'd be home. It was a good 'buffer time.' Any anger she felt for me would have dulled a little by then and been replaced by a sense of understanding and maturity; heck, she might even bring me gift so I wouldn't feel so bad.
If you made it to this point in the dialogue and were expecting a zombie apocalypse, I'm sorry.
I wish in some way that I had a good ending to this story. Something that involved meat cleavers and Prozac, or at least a mild beating with a pump shoe.
But, Tines was just a bit macabre about it all, and saved the lid as a kind of dying memento.
But then, if the symbol of your independence was destroyed by a British hobo squatting in your house, you'd probably feel a bit macabre too. Besides, I knew where I went wrong – I ignored the caffeine urge.
It's decisive: Coffee wins.
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