Stay

2

EVIE 

It was never taught to me as a child that one could put themselves into a food coma. My mother always stayed away from the topic. Her own food obsession driving her into many self-induced food comas over the years. My father didn’t question our eating habits. Merely suggesting that men loved women who could eat. Something about it being “sexy when a woman orders a burger instead of a salad”. That was probably one of the many reasons my parents got married at nineteen. Pops didn’t think he’d fine another lady who would out eat him in a food competition. 

Again, how were we not overweight? It was a marvel. A scientific mystery. 

More or less, I was always taught that having healthy eating habits was important. Ideal. That it was okay to eat and to like eating. I had always been proud of that, up until this moment. As I lay here in bed, with a bloated stomach and a food-induced headache. 

Somehow I had managed to eat all of my chinese take out, finish a tub of Ben and Jerry’s and still have room for a bag of chips. One would blame it on university. The unfortunate “sophomore twenty” - a step down from the less unfortunate “freshmen fifteen”. I, on the other hand, blame it on my mother. Through and through, it was her fault. 

The overly dramatic birds that resided outside my window decided that right now was the best time to reenact Snow White. They chirped... and continued to chirp, leaving me close to the brink of insanity. I was not Snow White. This was not a Disney movie and I was not going to sing with them. Unless they wanted to see their maker. 

Struggling to get up, I managed to roll my body off of the bed. My feet hitting the edge of my side table as I did so. A stinging pain shot through my foot, earning a slue of curse words to escape my lips. With a slight limp, I made my way across the bedroom. Automatically, I grabbed a sweater and socks. Slipping them both on while walking and managing to not fall flat on my ass. 

Today was going to be a good day. 

I felt sluggish. I felt bloated and old and in dire need of coffee. My tired old 19 year old body needed sustenance and it needed it quick. The kitchen felt far this morning. Farther than it usually did. Again, I blame it on my mother, since this had been her choice of apartment when we went on the dreaded search. “Father away, the longer you have to walk, the less guilty you will feel about the copious amounts of food you will be eating,” she had said to me. For a smart woman, she sure had her moments of insanity. 

Years later, I made it to the kitchen. My feet begrudgingly shuffling it’s way through the room. The godsend itself sat a mere foot away from me, in it’s stainless steal glory. “Magical machine, you are.” I say to my coffee maker. Fingers running along the edge and towards the handle of the pot. 

I fill it with water and pour into the coffee maker. I pick up the small canister of ground coffee beans, noting how light it felt.  “Sweet Joe, how I’ve missed thee.” I sing as I open the lid. 

Empty. The canister was empty. A sick, cruel joke this was. Surely God was against me this morning, or in desperate need of a laugh if he thought that this would constitute as a funny joke. I was unable to function without coffee. Caffeine in general was a needed food group in the Evie Jones food chart. It was also the one thing that my mom and I never agreed on. That being my unhealthy obsession (and quite possibly need) for caffeine. May it be coffee or tea, I had to have it. She on the other hand was an avid peppermint tea drinker. 

Yet here I stand, in my kitchen, with an empty canister that should have been full of coffee beans. For a day that was headed straight to a land of bunnies and butterflies, it sure took a dark turn. 

Grunting loudly, I rush to the front door. I don’t bother locking the door since I was only going across the hall to the door right in front of me. Knocking loudly (and completely disregarding the fact it was eight in the morning on a Saturday) I pounded on the door.