Mission Impossible - Kitchen Edition

4:29 AM - Feasting hour. My stomach cried in misery, the hunger was apparent. Although I had eaten five hours prior - for certain undisclosed reason, the growling grew louder. What was to follow was an emotional debate; One that was going to decide my ultimate path for the morning. The choices at hand - Starve in the comfort of my dimly lit room or risk having my morning ruined by the forcing of Data-Entry for five hours because the restless bear with foaming rabies had heard me rustling at the feeding grounds. This was a dilemma that was far too common due to my insomnia that plagued me since I was a small child of eight and had seen a late night documentary on PBS on the Holocaust - seeing corpses that were merely distorted images of their once lively selves tossed in a large hole to be forgotten for life wasn’t a fun image.
It only took me a moment of rapid thought to decide, it was time to put my faith in the GODS above - Please don’t let my father awake; From past voyages I’ve learned the GODS had a love/hate relationship with me, They loved to see me cower in fear over the boom of my father’s irritated and semi coherent words that echoed like thunder and startled you like lightening; and they hated when I could walk proudly to my room with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I stood from my chair and took a deep breath, the time was now. I opened my door softly to lessen the shrill creek I had been meaning to fix for months. The house was dark, silent. My brother had made his trip to the kitchen two hours prior. Father had an hour before that. With light footsteps I made my way towards the kitchen. With my watch dog ears I listened for noises coming out of the captain’s quarters. Silence… This could have been good or bad. Either Father-Darling was in deep REM sleep or he was awake and trying to fall asleep. In my younger years this signal would trick me because as I would open the fridge a distant deep voice would shriek out ‘GO TO BED VAL’ The first dozen times I was under the impression my father was possessed by Jesus and those words were a forewarning - a heads up, Thank you Jesus. I grabbed the handle and ever so slowly I opened the small door to heaven - but before looking at the contents within I used the bright light to see the door to the cave and how open it was; Depending on it’s position I knew where to stand to cover the light that brightened that quarter of the house and what sound level I had to obey. On this particular night the door was only half closed/open meaning Father-Darling would be safe from the light but General-Mama would get dim slits. The time to see my potential hunger-eliminators was at hand. Disappointment. Half a gallon of GREEN labeled milk - or white water with funky after taste as I called it, Two eggs, Canned Bud-Light that was waiting to go to the mini fridge, relish, ketchup, mustard, Bowl of aged mashed potatoes that I detested and a small amount of strawberry jelly. I peered over to the counter in search of a carb-packed loaf of bread only to let another sigh of grief out. The Olesen kitchen was infamous for such a thing. Salad dressing - No salad, Cereal - No milk, Sandwich meat - No bread, Tuna fish - No mayo, Gram - No cracker. The list could go on. After a silent whimper of sadness, I made my way to the canned section. Tomato sauce, tomato sauce, cream of mushroom, tomato sauce, unlabeled can, creamed corn, TOMATO SAUCE! I was in the middle of moving a stack of the evil tomato sauce when I heard a sound best described as an alpha lion trying to hock up a ten pound hairball. I froze with my left hand on cans from hell, my right hand firmly pressed on the counter holding my balance and my left foot arched up like a flamingo as to not touch the dogs metal food bowl that scraped in surround sound when even nudged. My heart went into a panic as I stood there another thirty seconds; mentally I began to pray,
“Dear glorious adult Jesus and your brother Craig…Please don’t let papa wake - It’s too early to commit to adulthood!”
I heard tossing and ultimately the creek of someone sitting up and placing their feet on the tiled floor below the bed,
“Damn it Jesus! I asked nicely!”
I had two choices, run to my room and hide in the dark like a German cockroach or stand my ground until approached THEN hide in the dark like a fat American roach. I chose to go native. I closed my eyes and accepted defeat till I heard the footsteps - those were not the stomps of an enraged bear; they were the light sticky ones of an injured limping penguin! Den Mother-Olesen was awake! Joy came back to my soul,
“Thank you CRAIG!”
Confidence was now in the kitchen rooting me on, with sweet Mama ‘O’ up I could be loud and if papa shouted she’d have my back and he’d stand down - The joy of being Mommy’s favorite mistake! Mommy-Dearest approached me with widened sleepy eyes,
“What you doin’ up?” She asked with a low concerned yawn voice, I blamed her broken English on leaving dreamland prematurely.
“Can’t sleep and hungry, you?” She knew why I was hungry - I could tell when her nostrils flared from the smell that floated around me,
“Can’t sleep and TV.” She stated as she walked past me, sat in the chair I called the ‘Singles love seat’ and lit a cigarette while putting on the news in one swift motion - I could only wish to have such talent.
“You going to work today?” Her voice spoke as I found a can of mini ravioli - I made a face of grimace when the words traveled to my sponge-like brain,
“I suppose - I don’t have much of a choice right?” Silence.
I emptied the contents of the can into a blue bowl that looked more like a mini cooking pot, my stomach turned with the sound the mini pasta’s of joy made when leaving the can - The sound always made me think of someone squishing a juicy brain while anally raping a corpse. I started a conversation to ignore the image of Jim Carrey doing above statement on a pile of human flesh from his hundreds of victims…Yeah.
“Did you know Ed Gein started his career of odd killer man by digging up fresh graves of ladies and stealing some of their skin, then cut off their boobs, who-hah and sometimes heads and make house decorations with them? Of course in later years he’d kill and use their skin to make female bodysuits…he could have just had a sex change but no, he wanted to take the hard way.” I’m sure I had told her said information before and I’m sure she responded in the same way,
“Some people are just sick,” with a sigh undertone.
My mini heavens were complete, with a smile on my face I grabbed the bowl and made my way to my bat-cave,
“Night mama.”
“Night.”
I placed the hot bowl on my cluttered desk and looked at the clock, 4:48 AM. Mission Accomplished.