Thursday

National Beard and Moustache Championships



Fast writing exercise 2:

One Sunday in 10th grade Ralph comes over. I dare him to eat a package of chocolate moldy donuts I found under my sister's bed the night before. He opened the package, poking at them, determining it would be too hard to bite into so we went downstairs to rinse them under the bathroom facet in the basement. I asked him what it felt like. He said it felt like a sponge between his fingers.The plastic cartoon fourth full of standing water marinate. Ralph pinched at them one by one from each grooved nestle. Some were slippery denigrating and lapped down the sides of his fingers. Others were chewy and I could tell he didn't like those. By the last row, I recognized a pattern, a quick science emerged to eating moldy donuts. And I was thrilled to watch the spectacle. As quick as you can without tasting it or choking was the thesis. You throw it in your mouth and let the chunks hit the back of your throat like a basketball would a backboard and gulp. You have to open your throat wide enough for short periods or you have to be methodical on your portioning. There was no telling how long it had been under the bed, weeks, months, maybe a year almost? I told him I took the package from our old house and put it under there when my family first moved to Toronto 3 years ago. He seemed curiously impressed by patience in the moldy donuts project and that I was spending the fruits of that patience on him. We were better friends now because we were sharing something gross and awesome. Even 35 years later, I never told him otherwise. He ate the donuts in 5 minutes flat.Twenty minutes later Ralph threw up. Then he threw up again. Then he kept throwing up. My parents were gone for the afternoon and left me in charge of the house. They told me not to do anything stupid and to feed my sister Mac N Cheese from the fridge, just heat for three minutes in the microwave, its already cooked Tony, my Mom said as she grabbed the keys off the wall and smelled the kitchen up of Red Door she always sprayed on just before leaving the house.The more Ralph threw up the more alarmed I became. What was I going to do now? I stood outside the bathroom listening to the sounds a human body makes and then looked over to a different sound. My sister had been staring at me from across the hallway for I don't know how long. Then this feeling in my chest.



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