What’s the opposite of endless? Endful? Regardless, I’m grateful to have a couple of new stories simultaneously underway, alongside a novel that’s spilling over into yet another notebook. And there’s an extensive back catalog, as well as unfinished pieces, drafts, and unpublished items. What I’m trying to say is, I feel lucky to have lots to choose from, though the options certainly aren’t endless. So where to begin with this edition of Sparkle Ditch?
The first thing that comes to mind is the just-passed valentines and whatever love is. Frequently endful. Plus it has started snowing where I am, and I can’t shake the feeling of some emotional, spiritual snow coming down too—cold and gray, soft and continuous, piling up on me, thickening as the hours go by. Not to be grim. Maybe it’s just a recent cloud of uncertainty looming over us. Whatever it is, it has me thinking of hot weather, summer, sun, fun love, freedom—the good stuff. And all this leads me to think back on an early story called “Don’t Forget the Dill.”
Always, thanks. —xo RJO
DON'T FORGET THE DILL
One of the jobs I hated most at that place was peeling the hard-boiled eggs for egg salad sandwiches. I’d have to do like thirty or forty at a time and I’d just rip those things to bits. The manager said that peeling them under running water would help. It did not. Sometimes though I’d get one that would peel like a dream. The shell would slide right off in one whole piece, like slipping a sock off. It was magical. That was rare though and it was mostly me tapping each egg all over with my knuckle, breaking the shell in a thousand tiny cracks, then growing more frustrated with each one. I’d eventually just be grabbing at fragments of shell, dragging along chunks of tender profitable egg white, throwing it all down into the sink. The egg salad was pretty good though. Celery, grated red onion (so you get the juice), a little Dijon mustard, paprika, salt, loads of black pepper, a ton of mayo.
I’d finished my first year of college and felt a little dumb working there with the high school girls. But they were sweet, and apart from the eggs I wasn’t terrible at my job. It was a family-run place and the daughter, the manager, was nice to me. Their name was Benedict. She was Jenny Benedict. She was my age and also in college. She had noticeably long legs. I called her Legs Benedict. One time she and one of the high school girls were going to see a movie after work and they invited me to come. When I went out to the parking lot Jenny was by herself smoking a cigarette in her car. She asked if I was ready and I asked where Morgan was. She said Morgan had to leave and it would just be us. During the movie we held hands, rubbed inseams, and kissed. I think her tongue was in my ear before the previews ended. From then on we’d make out in the walk-in fridge at work and find a way to touch one another whenever we passed by. We never went out again outside of the sandwich shop, we just became horny co-workers. I was OK with that.
Things kept on that way for nearly the rest of the summer until Jenny burned her hand pretty bad at the deep fryer and stopped coming to work for a bit. It only took two days before I was meeting Morgan in the walk-in fridge. The first day Jenny came back to work she found me and Morgan in the fridge with our shorts unzipped. Legs Benedict fired me on the spot.
Anyway, that’s what I think about sometimes whenever I boil an egg now.