Accentuates the Unbalanced

I feel like I never left my desk all day.  I got up and went to the kitchen and filled another cup of coffee.  I’d made it strong, as always.  But there’s something wrong with the coffee machine that looked so smart when we'd bought it.  It hasn’t lasted very long.  So the brew that drips out is darker than espresso.  I pour milk in and it has no impact.  By the time it does, I’ve dulled the heat and killed the taste.  Whatever.  I wasn’t pouring a third cup of coffee for the taste of it.

There’s a jar of roasted sunflower seeds on the table.  (I’ve been in China too long as I’d instantly remembered the Chinese word guazir, but couldn’t recall the English word for the life of me.)  Handful of guazir slapped straight up in to my mouth.  I realize that these roasted nuts are salty and that therefore they’re what I crave and they are no good for me as well.  And this brand is OK, but whatever Planters does to their guazir tastes much better to my tongue. 

The Chinese nation may one day eat seeds out of a bottle.  But for now, they prefer to snap the husk with their teeth, and extract the seed to consume and spit out or in some such fashion do away with the remains.  Certainly, it’s a fine method for devouring guazir if you’re not hungry and have all the time in the world.  But neither of those things applies to me. 

I’m in the kitchen.  I am going to snack.  I want two baseline tastes to complement this salty paste.  I reach for a hunk of sharp cheddar cheese that is in the refrigerator door.  Shamelessly I bite a hunk off.  No one eats it but me anyway.  I know, I know.  That’s why I used the adverb I did.

Without thinking I reach for the box of raisins.  Sweet is the logical counter balance to the salty, cheese poultice in my mouth.  But the box is empty.  Someone must have finished them off last night.  The very thought of denial accentuates the unbalanced taste in my mouth.  The craving has intensified.  I spy the other jar with the dried fruit, but it has long since been empty.  There in the door of the fridge is a half full bottle of grapefruit juice.  This may as well be my personal bottle as no one else seems to like grapefruit juice.  Not yet anyway.  But this time civility calls and I pour myself a proper glass and take it back in to my office, with my tepid cup of stimulants.