I had to be sure

My hands smell like garlic. And I ate a banana and licked my fingers and strange things happened. Why do some flavors clash with each other? I suppose it’s the same reason some people clash with each other – born in different cycles, different dirt.
Pat has the flu. I went to the store at lunch to buy him chicken soup, crackers, bananas, 7UP. The checker kept her distance, eyeing me like a plague. And I thought about how much we reveal ourselves even when we don’t want to. We can’t hide everything no matter how private we are. I’m not the sick one, but she can’t know that. Alone these items are just items – sugar, water, wheat – but together they say something about who I am, what I’m going through at 12:15 on a Tuesday. It was the same feeling I got when I put a pregnancy test on the counter at CVS once and the teenage boy with gauged ears rang it with feigned nonchalance, put it in a plastic bag and said, “Have a nice day.”