Room for Good Food – Kenneth Randle Landers

December 23, 2020

“I could use some food,” I said as I opened the refrigerator.
“Ya, I could use some good food like pretzels,” said Sandy.
“I don’t have any pretzels. Let’s see I guess I’ll have a sandwich,” I said.
Sandy without hesitation jabbed, “Ya, go ahead and have a sandwich. I know deep down inside you are a sandwich man”.
I was used to her quick snark comments and responded by snickering. I said, “What do you want to eat? Here’s some left over casserole that I made for you.”
“That was very delicious,” she said.
“Glad you liked it,” I said
Then she began to break it down like usual, “20% of it was very delicious.” 
I played along like usual, although I thought her serious. I said, “Oh, so you only liked a little bit of it? Why do you do that? Either you like it or you don’t? Why are you always breaking things down into percentages?”
She didn’t answer my questions and continued analyzing her reaction to the casserole. She said, “Ya, about 50% of it was okay. And, about 30% of it was just nasty.”
I didn’t want to argue with her and said, “Glad you liked 30% of it. That’s more than last time.”
“Well,” she said. “I liked it better last time because even though only 7% of it was very delicious, 60% of it was delicious and 20% of it was okay. That left 13% of it being”
I interrupted, “I know, 13% of it was nasty, right?”
“No,” she said. “I was indifferent to 13% of it. I had no reaction at all to it.”
“Which means what?” I said.
“It means I had 13% no reaction to it,” she said.
So, Sandy could be like that. She would say that she was just being honest, but I wondered if she did that just to irritate me or amuse me. And, she often talked with a lisp which I was suspicious of and wondered if she did that to also irritate me or amuse me. She would say, “A shissy-five yard field goal” when we watched football. Sandy liked football and would often tell me that she is the quarterback. I guess that meant she liked to be the leader. And, when she recited poetry it seemed like the lisp became more pronounced. She liked to recite William Carlos Williams’ poem “This is Just to Say.” However, when she would recite it then it sounded like “Thish shez jesh to shay.”
As I was making a sandwich Sandy continued to watch me carefully often throwing in comments that if someone was overhearing for the first time would think were snide, but I think she was being serious.
Just then, a big gray cat struts into the kitchen and says, “Your talking woke me up”.
“Ya, right. You’re here because you smelled food,” I said.
The big gray cat said, “No, I heard you talking to Sandy again. There is something wrong when a grown man talks to a big white cat that he knew in childhood. It’s time to put away silly childhood games and only talk to me now.”
Then Sandy spoke up, “Since pets are not allowed here, there is room here for both of us, but I’m the quarterback, Wanny”.