Now I'm craving olives...

“Simple yet impossible task”
Version 1, 5/2/09

SARA pours a vodka and vermouth mixture into a martini glass. She takes the glass to her lips, yet stops. She turns, steps on her cat. Sara cries out in a mixture of apology, and annoyance at her ever-present cat. She retrieves a jar of olives from the pantry.

The lid is tight. She keeps turning, and turning.

She shakes her right hand vigorously to loosen her muscles, and makes a production of rolling her shoulders, yet the jar does not budge. On one extremely forceful attempt, Sarah’s lower back goes out. She drops the jar on her foot, which causes her to double over in pain. She breathes slowly, and heavily, and steadies herself at the counter with one hand, and slowly bends to retrieve the jar. She eases back up to a standing position, though has spasms in her back, which do not help her, as she alternates between addressing the spasms, and twisting on the jar’s lid.

She runs hot water over the jar. The water scalds her hand. She wails in pain, and drops the jar into the sink. She opens the junk drawer next to the sink, tossing a tape measure, receipts, incense, maps, take-out menus, spare keys, and random business cards of random people all to the floor until she finds the screwdriver. She attempts to pry the jar open by nudging the screw driver’s sharp tip between the lid and the jar, yet as she does this, she loses her grip, and stabs the back of her wrist with the driver. She howls in pain and heads to the bathroom, she crashes nose first into the door frame.

Her nose is bleeding as she goes to the shelf where the first aid kit is located, but not before stepping barefoot into the open cat litter box, which causes the box to upend, and cat litter to go everywhere, including all over Sara, whom slips onto the floor on her already hurt back. She steadies herself, applies Neosporin, as well as a bandage to her scratched, and bloody wrist, and affixes a wad of toilet paper to her running, bloody nose.

She brushes the cat litter off from her body, and tentatively removes of clump of cat shit from her hair while staring daggers at her cat. She manages to get back to the counter, and now is so fatigued that she decides to briefly remove the bloodied clump of tissue from her face for the purpose of taking a large gulp of vodka from the martini glass to loosen her mood as she again tackles the simple yet impossible task of opening the jar of olives.

Sara holds the jar to her chest, and turns, and turns, but nothing happens. She throws up both hands in frustration, and pries a cell phone from her pocket, and begins to text message a former fuck buddy whom she knows if he were in her life he’d at least assist her with opening a goddamn jar of olives. She stops mid-thumb, and goes back to the jar, determined to do this simple task entirely on her own, while preserving her womanly pride. She tries twisting the jar again, yet her elbow hits the half-full martini glass, which goes flying, and shatters, with shards of glass glittering her dirty, forever un-mopped floor. Her cat is sniffing the vodka, and she is waving the cat off, cautioning him to not walk on the glass as she too gingerly steps around it. She hobbles to the broom closet, and returns with a brush and dustpan. She kneels to begin sweeping it up, and then pauses, looks at the jar on the counter, and decides to return to the olives.

This time her face is red, and she is expending great energy all while wincing due to her back. She finally gets the jar open. But it happens with such force that the lid goes flying. She drops the jar in surprise, and olives go rolling, rolling, rolling onto the very dirty floor.

She lies on the floor in defeat, attempting to stretch her back, and find the perfect position. Her intrepid cat eats a few olives as well as licks the olive juice, and the vodka, and the vermouth. Satiated, he licks Sara’s forehead. She drifts into a long, much needed slumber, enjoying her perfect martini, if only by proxy, and in her dreams.