What's The Deal With Mayonnaise

“You know what? I quit.” It is as simple as that. No warning. No forethought. Just I quit. Its over. I feel the spark that lit my fire extinguish itself when I saw the title of the email. The moment you cracked your spittle encrusted lips and that guttural groan of a voice you have. These five freedom inducing words regurgitated and formed in my intestines. They gathered bile and moved upward reversing through my liver past the space my spleen once lived and around the corner of my appendix. A quick detour at my crumbling heart. An unscheduled pitstop at my lungs for a smoke break; a mellow and smooth Honduran cigar. Complete with golden ringlet and thigh rubbed outer leaves. The phrase slipped up my throat and wobbled in the web of my vocal chords. Five words, five syllables edged my lips and slipped forth. You know what! I quit.

The words echoed in the air of the conference room and pushed through the glass door and rambled on through the hall. The resonance of these words rattled the intern, hastily gathering coffee and lunch orders. He fumbled his legal pad and adjusted his glasses, settling them on the bridge of his nose. His index finger slipping and marring the middle of his forehead. He stood and stared in my direction. A deer in headlights, unable to fathom the danger he was in. He was witnessing a rebirth. An epic renewal of a man’s soul and forbearance. The pinnacle where wisdom meets desire and transform a pattern of submission; into a mountain of ambition, desire and confidence.

Watching a grizzled veteran of the office. A man gripped by the hand, an unrelenting hammer. A hammer that strikes an anvil; over and over. Striking a chisel every day for a minimum of eight hours. Sinking the chisel through rib, cartilage and sinew. Burying a molten steel, wedging it under and beneath vertebrate. Stiffening the facia of a mans structure. Depriving the being from itself, separating life from will. A vessel of demise settling reverently in the darkened oxygen deprived folds of the beings mind. A whip. A yoke. Binding the process of thought, delivering the mind to a seductive cradle of submission. You know what? I quit.

No longer a question. Stronger than a statement. A manifest. The vessel reembarks. Retrains itself, aware of its new mission. Its purpose unfolding. The captain of the ship raises a new sail. Forged from the essence of the five simple words. The statement may appear to be negative in tone. Dismissive and self destructive by nature. An oblong perspective shifts the mound from the negative to the positive. The statement when muttered defiantly creates a wave, a vibration back through the body. Reinforcing, cleansing each organ of choking toxins absorbed through the skin. The process detoxifies the substance, the very atoms and molecules that form the body. The fibres of being strengthen as the proclamation rings true. You know what! I quit.

The mantra becomes a slogan. Mitigating falsehoods and doctrines forced into the mind during childhood. Repeated statements, a bundle of lies put forth as truth by parents and teachers. A doctrine, an essay of falsehoods that urge a person to succeed. Backed by the house of cards that if you work hard and do the right thing you can grow up to do anything you want. You can be president. You know what! I quit.

I quit believing the lies. I know I can do better, be better. A simple email, the straw that broke the camels back. My back. It’s over. I choose truth, my truth. Watch your mouth, so and so thinks its offensive. Well, I’m offended by your feelings of being offended. I won’t lash out; I will take hold of my rage and control it.Through my own direction; through my own channelling. I am no longer challenged by other’s beliefs or feelings. I am my own person. Any trauma that befell me in my past is not my fault. I take responsibility only for myself. Other’s rhetorics and actions are no longer a beacon, no longer a trigger. You know what! I quit.

Walking into the office this morning I was on auto pilot. Every greeting of hello, good morning, was preprogrammed. I had no real feeling. Driving in I listened to the morning show. There was no glint in my eye, no real opinion. I had no taste when it came to my coffee. Any cream or additive was there just for theatrics. All a show. My taste buds could not determine the distinct difference, the distinct divulgence between half and half, which I don’t understand why that doesn’t make a whole; and two percent milk. The aromatic royalty of the French vanilla and the squirrelly taste of hazelnut. In the mounting of these five syllables, I have awakened, no, more than that, I am erupting. Take me to Yellowstone and close me off for the summer. I am simmering, and building a new outlook on my life. You know what! I quit.

The intern raps on the glass door and enters. He straightens his tie and shuffles the pages on his legal pad. He clears his throat and stands in defiance. He mutters something under his breath that sounded like you aren’t a catcher’s mitt. He shakes his head and tries again. “Sir you can’t quit. I already ordered you a tuna on rye.”

He glances down at his feet defeated. I sit in exhaustion, the high-back leather chair rolls four feet from the conference table. It all made sense. My entire life flashed before my eyes. A light, a tunnel; learning to ride a bike. It started to become clearer. Snowball fights in grade school, detention, then graduation. College was drunk but I had a degree in hand. Wedding. Divorce; no kids. My drive into work. I look at the new kid.

“And coffee, large double-double, two milk, not half and half which doesn’t make a whole?”

You know what? I quit; and what’s the deal with mayonnaise.