Boyfriend Bragging

When all of your friends in near geographic proximity, as well as any semblance of interesting culture and entertainment worth pursuing and purchasing, live and exist about a one hour train ride to your east, a typical Friday late afternoon or early evening looks like this: clench your teeth as you tailgate through traffic home as swiftly as possible, put a can of diet soda into your freezer to quickly chill for some much desired en route caffeination, throw some random arguable "necessities" (including at least ten pairs of gold and rhinestone earrings, a leotard, and some maxi skirts, excluding essentials like extra pairs of underwear and your deodorant) into your Diane von Furstenberg weekend shoulder bag, find your latest read and toss it in your leather purse, make sure you have at least three lipsticks, and dash out the door to catch the New Jersey transit train that does not have a layover in delightfully foul Newark, causing an additional forty minute delay to your already ridiculous and inconvenient social commute.

Now, if you keen on detail, in text, you will notice that the above harangued list did not include one critical step: remove said can of soda from your freezer, so that you can, indeed, imbibe it, refresh and revive yourself with this sweet elixir. And so it does not explode. I nearly always recall this crucial task, sip on my soda as I sprint to the station. Last Friday, unfortunately, I did not have my wits about me and was not so lucky.

Physical and chemical properties of matter inform us that water molecules expand as they freeze, transition from a liquid to a solid state; very basic scientific foundation. So, any type of predominantly water-based liquid, trapped in a can of defined volume, trapped in a freezer of low temperatures, will expand and expand, until it can release, in an eruption of  crystalline shards of cola, decorating your frozen fruits and sausages and ice cream pints like splatters of paint from a drunken and wanton artist.

Immediately upon arriving at the station, hearing the engine groan in the distance, I remembered the can. And, knowing that I would not be returning to my apartment that Sunday evening, could only cringe at the certain image of unpleasant clean-up that would await me there. Sure enough, come Sunday, as I returned to my humble dwelling, there were no surprises. I opened the freezer door, the entire cavernous stomach sullied with bits of frozen cola slush. Immediately, I closed the door once more, unable to grapple with the concept of cleaning this horrendous mess; my freezer had already needed, yet another, wipe down from the pathetic remnants of a few popsicles that refused to be scraped free, from a hurricane power outage a year ago. My elbow grease and entire roll of paper towels seemed to do little. Now, it was a complete disaster zone.

Calmly and simply, the filmmaker told me to keep the door closed, and to not worry about it. It would be taken care of. When I arrived home from work Monday evening, masochistically, I slid the door open, peered in. It was spotless. Without a doubt, the cleanest it had ever been since I had moved in. Every surface was a gleaming, almost medicinal white, immaculate and saintly pristine, and he even had tossed some now unwanted food items that had long yearned for the trash. Swooning, seduced by the sultry and alluring appeal of sterile surfaces, I nearly fainted. Some girls are just lucky, I suppose, even when they are sometimes a bit forgetful. 

(image taken from Miss Top Ten Image)