(no subject)
Better Knives
I have always thought I was blessed with a husband who insists on cooking. Every day when I arrive home after my two hour commute, I find him bustling about after his twenty minute drive, already working on that evening’s culinary masterpiece. It is our relaxation time, when I get to sit back with a beer and a book, and he maneuvers around the kitchen with a tumbler of Johnny Walker. The kitchen seems to be the only place where his 6’2” 250 pound hulking self is agile, where he glides instead of lumbers. Today, however, is different.
I heard the clatter of metal coming from the kitchen all the way in the garage when I got out of my car. John never slams the pots and pans around, he says they need to be treated with dignity and care if we expect them to cook our food well. By the time I get all the way inside, the noise has become a full on roar. It seems that every piece of metal cookware we own has been torn from its place and thrown into another. Frying pans hanging from cabinets, a pot topping off the banister, cookie sheets on the couch. More frightening are the knives. Some are stuck next to the cookie sheets, but others are grotesquely protruding from the walls, dripping something vaguely pink. As I get closer I realize the mystery fluid is the blood and guts of a tomato.
One look at John’s face and I am too petrified to speak. His skin is drained of all color except for his flushed cheeks. His brow is furrowed and he is intently staring at his task, which seems to be cutting tomatoes. He jams the knife down with such vigor that I wonder idly if he might break the cutting board. The tomato at his mercy does not slice, but collapses under the edge of the blade, oozing juice all over the already sated area.
“Is it too much to ask to have a knife that can cut tomatoes?” While speaking he takes the knife in his hand and jams it into a cabinet door. I want to move but I’m frozen. There is another knife in his hand before I realize it. He grabs another victim and lines it up under his guillotine.
“I can safely say we’re well off enough to own at least ONE good tomato knife, wouldn’t you agree?”
Sqelch, another failed knife, another thud as the serrated blade sinks into the center of a stair.
“I thought I told you that the only requirement I had for living this lovely life we lead is that I need a NICE kitchen with NICE equipment.”
The process is repeated. To have amassed so many tomatoes he must have gone out into the garden and picked every one off the vines that climb there. The guts and skins of the dead are all over and I notice there are only two remaining unharmed tomatoes. Glancing at the depleted knife block I see three soldiers at attention. He snatches one and destroys another victim.
Thud. “NICE I said. NICE knives can slice tomatoes without all this goddamn MESS.” Two soldiers, one victim.
Thud. “I do ALL the cooking for you, and you couldn’t buy me better knives.” One lone soldier left standing, no more tomatoes to attack.
“I think you need to learn the difference between a good knife and a better knife.”
Red. No more victims at all, and the last knife to go into the wall drips with much darker blood and guts.