A Glimpse Into the Oblivious

         In my office, tiny and cramped, I keep a refrigerator. I keep it in the back where none of the customers ever go, one of those small ones, the kind meant for diet coke cans and wrapped up, half eaten sandwiches. It's a convenience. Easy enough to appreciate in it's ability to keep beverages marginally cool and at hand, but never capable of carrying, never really meant for, the larger provisions that, say, a kitchen refrigerator could contain. I know this. And yet, someone, somebody in this office of just four employees, they decided a gallon of orange juice-the jug kind with the handle- it would fit just perfectly in there. Snug, in between those diet cokes and leftover sandwiches.

         But, alas, it was too large for the minuscule chrome cooler and promptly sprung a leak. A leak, quiet and stealthy as the ninja- the kind of leak that tip-toes out the jug and shimmies itself under the paper sacks holding those goddamn sandwiches, breaks the seal and repels from the refrigerator bottom, with a grappling hook, onto the brill-o carpet. Building itself up into little pools- praying that I have some sort of temporal lobe damage that will prevent me from smelling its festering and allow it to remain in its new camp. You just know, deep down, it hated being in that jug.

         Five days after the leak- that little room, it smelled like a dead citrus farmer. And I didn't want to clean it, didn't want to curse my olfactories to such a close and intimate encounter with pure and honest evil. I didn't want to clean up someone else's miscalculation, simply wouldn't allow myself to do it. But the air freshener, it was citrus scented and I was beginning to get physically ill from the sweet stench. Customers were starting to notice-

         She walked in. The ex. My 'big mistake', the 'one', the 'love of my life'. We were together for eight glorious months. I hadn't seen her in six. Oh, how I needed her back. What was she doing here? Did I look okay?

         She tossed two or three envelopes onto my desk."You're still getting mail at my place. You need to get the address changed, okay?" She was still alarmingly beautiful, graceful, poised.

         "Okay, yeah- I already did." I lied. "I don't know why they're still-."

         "Just get it fixed."

         "Yeah, absolutely." I reached for her hand. "So I was thinking... do you want to have dinner tonight, Friday maybe?"

         She pulled her hand back, quickly, away from my grasping reach. "No." She paused. "And what is that god-awful smell in here? It's disgusting." She spun, strolled out the door, sure that the 'god-awful smell' emanated from me- from my clothes, maybe.

         There was no choice now. I had to clean up the wretched juice stains.

         She would have agreed to dinner, would have wanted to work things out, if she hadn't thought it was me that stunk like a Floridian dumpster. Dinner would have been all laughter and champagne, awkward, yet comfortable clutches and gazing. We would have made love under a canopy of stars.

         But now, I was stuck sponge-scrubbing the carpet, spraying air freshener constantly to override the putridity.

         Who can drink a whole gallon of orange juice anyway?