A Letter To A Wet Blanket

Dear Funk,

It's been a while. A few months, at least. I can't say I'm exactly glad to see you, but at least we're highly familiar with one another, and so there's no great adjustment that needs to take place during your visit.

You're a bit like a wet blanket. Or maybe one with thorns? Or maybe one that's been set aflame.

Ah...I don't know a good metaphor for you. You're an empty bird feeder. Rancid milk. A Twinkie without the filling.

So, why did you swing by? How long will you be hanging out? I'm thinking you may have sensed a dropping, that sad oocyte that has nowhere to go, sticking around and waiting for company, ultimately to be discarded like an egg shell. It can be bad around these parts when that happens.

Or maybe it's the stress of school, the loss of a job that was supposed to be temporary (but not this temporary), or the need to get away, to a place that requires sandals and short cocktail dresses and staying up until 3am until passing out on a beach.

Funk, when you're around, I don't clean the peanut butter remnants out of the jar so I can put it, nice and clean, in the recycling. I just throw that shit out. Alright, who am I kidding? I throw that shit out all the time. Little 1 surrounded by a triangle be damned. But honestly, it's only the peanut butter jars. I'm fastidious about recycling everything else.

So let me amend that. Funk, when you're around, I don't wash out Ziploc bags to reuse them. That's the truth right there. They all go into the garbage, as if I can spite the whole gray-cast world by adding one more item to a landfill. I know you don't care. You'd be the character in a Carl Hiassen novel that discards all her fast food detritus out her car window.

You used to come around more often, and I'm grateful that you're too busy to show up. The last time you visited, you stayed so long I began to worry, in that way that I've mastered, that you were going to stay forever.

Kelly and Funk, BFFs.

I worried that I'd have to make that trip...that sad, lonely trip for a pharmaceutical to tweak those pesky neurotransmitters. Serotonin, that pill would say, stop your re-uptake! Funk, sometimes I crack myself up.

You departed just as I thought you had hung up your greasy coat to stay. So long, you said. And then, just for good measure, See you later, alligator!

Funk, I'm sad to say this, because I'm generally unfailingly nice and polite. I gave you the finger on your way out the door. Of course, I did this when your back was turned.

I should be studying for a test right now, Funk, but you have me all consumed right now. Your presence makes me apathetic. And itchy. And bitchy. And tired.

I'm going to ask you to stay here for a while, so I can go out to my neighborhood cafe and read about metabolism, the urinary system, and fluid and electrolyte balance. Maybe you'll listen to me for once and not follow me, so I can sip some decaf and compose an essay in my head of how blood plasma turns into urine. It all starts out in the renal corpuscle. But I know you don't give a crap.

Do me that one favor. We have a pretty solid history together. Maybe not a good one, but tried and true.

See you later, alligator.

Your not-a-friend,

Kelly