ARTICULATED

A number of months ago, the nice woman who cleans my house surprised me with homemade spring rolls. I was overcome at the sight of the deep-fried Vietnamese treats, and I was in a good mood, so I did a little jig. She liked that very much.

But the over-expression of gratitude sparked something unintended. Now every time Ngoi comes to clean, she brings enough spring rolls to feed an entire family, along with her biweekly question, “Why do you live here alone?”  If I don’t eat them right away, she looks disappointed.

I like the spring rolls … sort of. But I don’t really eat fried food during the week. And I don’t really like reheated fried food at all.  So they go uneaten.

What has ensued is textbook codependency. About 15 minutes before Ngoi is to arrive, no matter what sort of deadline I’m on, I jump up from my desk and hurriedly dig the two-week-old spring rolls out of the refrigerator. I can’t simply put them in the trash, because she might find them. So I place them in a separate bag and carry them to the dumpster in the alley.

This routine would be easier if Ngoi arrived at the same time every time. But there’s about an hour variance. Obviously, I could throw out the spring rolls sometime other than the moment before she walks in the door. But because I feel bad about the whole thing, I procrastinate.

Once the uneaten spring rolls are safely disposed of, I throw her money on the counter, grab my things, and bolt out the door. I hate working at coffee shops.   And I love her. But in this situation, it’s worth it.

Tags: codependency, Kinkennon Communications, Shane Kinkennon, spring rolls

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.