McRib

i accidentally posted this as a note. didn't mean for this to be behind a paywall. a little something I wrote in the van while on tour, inspired by the ever-ephemeral McRib.

People need things to look forward to. That’s why we have school bells and holidays and McRibs and even dentists, because it’s fun to dread something and to imagine that horrible foam in your mouth. The McRib is Back on a billboard outside Columbus, Ohio. The highway is thick with trees, but the McRib evokes another America that is water starved and parking lotted. Childhood. And in that America, bouncy cartoonish meats signify a fun, special time. Birthdays and baseball games. Ikea food courts. Costco. The sale ends soon and a small ticking clock on a banner ad. I could stay up all night, high on the savings, and fall asleep with my shopping cart full, no packages expected at my doorstep. The sale is the event itself. There is no purchase required.

I don’t wait for Christmas to give gifts to my love. I see a book and I gift the book. I buy him Japanese wool socks and small little glass animals and I gift them to him whenever I want, willy nilly. I leave them on the bed or next to the kettle. A croissant, a refrigerator magnet, a new system for organizing our linens. A book that’s really more for me than him. A coffee cup. But when December rolls around, I have no more ideas. I give him nothing and search his eyes for signs of disappointment. I don’t even believe in any god who is not the glimmer of light reflected on the side of a building. But still, I am guilty at his half smile.

Next year, I will hoard all my thoughtfulnesses and pour them on him December 25th like a dump truck. Stale cookies and rotten flowers all mixed up with sweaters and steak dinners and bits of nacre found on the beach. It won’t matter that he has grown distant after a year absent of small kindnesses. A year with no dead mice dragged to the doorstep by his devoted kitty cat. It won’t matter that his light has dimmed and he is contemplating new girlfriends in every ass he sees walking down the street, because I will take my dump truck and I will show him all my love, all the love I have been faithfully squirreling away. We’ll both stand before it, piled high like a monument to surprises, to special occasions, to something to look forward to. And I’ll search his eyes for signs.