Bath Poutine
My ex had a gaming group over for a long evening of Changeling or Vampire or Mage; some WhiteWolf game he loved and had crafted for the glory of it. I wasn’t playing; I had been out drinking after a show.
This was in the glory days of scrappy start-ups in San Francisco. I had three rideshare apps in my phone, and at least six different options for food delivery, each trying to undercut the other. When I came in, hearing the boisterous adventurers in the other room, I knew I was going to have to order myself some food if I didn’t want to drunkenly pick among their pizza crusts and funyun crumbs.
Our apartment layout made it easy for me to slip into the bathroom without anyone knowing I was in the house at all. Liquored up and order placed, I slid out of my clothes and into the tub.
Perhaps forty minutes had passed when my ex realized I was home. Coming to the door and seeing my shed finery, he called out my name.
“Yes?”
“Are you in the tub?”
“Yes. Have your friends use the other one.”
“Obviously,” he said, sounding annoyed.
The doorbell intruded.
“Who the hell is that?” he asked the empty hallway.
“Get the door!” I yelled. “It’s poutine!”
“It’s not poutine, you drunk toddler,” he scolded, going to the door. “It’s midnight.”
He opened up and I could hear a delivery person who was probably being underpaid by some wannabe unicorns handing him an obscenely large serving of poutine.
“I already tipped,” I yelled, hearing my ex shut the door.
“I swear to god,” he said, handing me the two-pound takeout carton of fries, melted cheese, and brown gravy topped with burnt ends and green onions.
“Swear elsewhere,” I said, tearing it open with the savagery of the witching hour drunchies. “I wish to be alone with my bath poutine.”
In the morning, I cleaned my waterlogged fries out of the drain.