The Daily Struggle

At last, the long week at work had come to end. The commute home had proven less than ideal with a typically late and overcrowded tram depositing me at Flinders Street Station giving me just enough time to see my train pulling away from the platform. While I would only need to wait ten minutes for the next train, l'm left to catch the much more crowded Laverton service and that never puts me into a good mood. 

By the time I eventually opened the front door I was exhausted. It’s not that my work is physically taxing (pun intended), more a combination of mental exhaustion and accumulated sleep debt that builds up over the work week and generally leaves me with no energy come Friday night. I pulled off my work shoes which are still new enough to be horribly uncomfortable, strip off my work shirt and pants, shoving them unceremoniously into the washing machine where they will meet their fate when Ben gets home to add to the load. 

By now winter is really starting to kick in, and the combination of moving from hot to cold when changing from forms of public transport and the final walk home from the station leaves me feeling a disgusting kind of sweaty coldness. There is no known cure except to crank up the heating system and jump in a scolding my hot shower, the kind that will leave the bathroom looking like you’ve wandered into a mist enshrouded horror movie once your done. The kind of shower where you emerge looking like a lobster from water so hot that your skin will melt off if you stayed in there a moment longer. But then again, maybe that’s just me. 

So, with the shower complete, and the house warming up nicely, I pull on a pair of trackies, a loosely fitting shirt and trudge upstairs to the sofa, throwing myself down with very little desire or intention to move again for the remainder of the evening. Despite the tiredness, I reach for my phone rather than choosing to rest my eyes and start engaging with my social circle, you know Facebook, Twitter, instagram, repeat and the minutes start melting away into nothingness. Then it starts. 

A small sound at first. It’s like a cry for attention saying ‘please Sir, I’m ever so empty, won’t you put something in me’. I ignore it, at this stage the appeal of my comfy positioning on the sofa it too strong for me to be drawn away. I redouble my efforts on the socials, flicking down those timelines like there’s no tomorrow.

It’s not long before my stomach makes it’s second attempt. Louder than the first, it’s the kind of sound that, if made in public , would clause the people around you to take pause and slowly turn towards you, secretly wondering to themselves ‘what the hell was that?’ For me, it means I’m drawing ever nearer to the time where some serious decisions need to be made. 

The clock on my phone tells me it’s nearing the time when Ben finishes his work for the day, so I know a message or call will be coming through soon. Reluctantly, I drag myself up from the sofa and head to the fridge. It’s time to plan something for dinner. The first challenge I face is that I know I didn’t get any meat out of the freezer to defrost overnight, so right away my choices are limited. The second problem is that I have absolutely no motivation to actually cook. Still when I get to the refrigerator I open the door and stare at the content. The first thing that catches my eye is a beer. On the belief that carbs = filling, I confidently pry the top off and take a few deep mouthfuls. Let my stomach sort that out and I’ve bought myself some time. I resume the search, it’s the end of the week so shelf after shelf is empty. I reach the bottom of the fridge and we strike gold, or rather an assortment of colours as the crisper is loaded with vegetables. I could whip up a nice vegetable stir fry. I think ahead to me cutting up vegetable, frying them off, hydrating noodles, it’s all sounds so delicious but so much effort. Let’s put that down as a maybe. 

I realize that my beer is empty. How long had that flash forward taken? Am I an alcoholic? All questions for another time. I grab another beer and pop it’s top before closing the fridge door and turning to the freezer. Opening the door, the blast of super cooled air hits my still overheated skin, giving me a brief shiver. I find ice cream, chicken breast, sausage, steak all frozen solid. They’re not going to work. No frozen dinners, our emergency supply was eaten earlier in the week. There are those oven baked chicken tenders, and some frozen peas and corn. That could work. I flash forward again, putting the chicken on an oven tray, putting the tray in the oven, microwaving those vegetables. It’s still seems like so much effort. I close the freezer. 

Depositing another empty beer bottle in the recycling bin, and after collecting another traveler I return to my position on the sofa to ponder in greater detail the results of my fact finding mission. There are two very real possibilities on the cards. The stir fry is quick to cook but has a bit of prep involved, or the chicken which has a longer cook time but less effort on my part. Decisions, decisions. 

I absent mindedly open my phone and there it is, the solution that I knew I was going to take all along. Guilt had made me pretend that I was going to cook, but I knew I wouldn’t. There was a reason that I hadn’t taken anything out of the freezer to defrost the night before. UberEats, Menulog, Deliveroo. My stomach growled for the third time, loudly and enthusiastically. The phone started ringing, it was Ben saying he had just Left work. Call it fate, call it destiny, there was only one choice left to make now. 

With some trepidation and a degree of uncertainty I opened the app, the choices immediately overwhelming. Pizza, Chinese, Japanese, burgers, fish and chips, that roast chicken place I love, all demanding to be ordered and consumed. Click on a restaurant, peruse the menu, want everything, scoff at the price, move on. So it continued, minutes, hours, days its impossible to tell, so deep down the food choices rabbit hole I had fallen. 

Then comes the text message and I’m gripped by horror, Ben is at Flinders Street and his train is leaving in 5 minutes. The clock is really ticking now because I have to time the order perfectly so it arrives at the exact time Ben will walk through the door thus minimize the time i am left with an angrily grumbling stomach, but also ensure the food is still hot for Ben. I am out of time, the time for choosing has come and the food must be ordered now. I  no longer have the luxury of trying something new or ordering from too far away. It can’t be food with a long preparation time or from a place that will require the driver to cross any main roads. It needs to be local, a menu I know well and of course, it must taste delicious. Nutritional value is not a consideration.

The choice is made and the order placed, three minutes have passed since I received Ben’s text. The order flies through cyberspace and arrives at the restaurant. I get the ping back, the order is accepted and is being prepared and the countdown begins in earnest. They’re saying 25 minutes. That will be too long, Ben will be home and my stomach would have consumed itself by then. 

An update from Ben, the train is delayed by 5 minutes. That helps with the timing, food and Ben are now synchronized. I realise my beer is gone and return to the fridge. Before I return to the sofa I think to open the pantry and see a container of almonds. Perfect. I grab a small handful and shove them in my mouth and the stomach rumbles fade away. As I go to sit, disaster strikes, a notification tells me the driver has collected my food. That must be some sort of record in food preparation. I open the app and the car icon appears and starts moving towards me.

A text from Ben says the train showed up on time after all and he is on his way. We’re back in the game. Food and Ben are hurtling towards me and the tension is building. I set the table in preparation, a new found energy coursing through me. I go downstairs and switch the outside light on (our kitchen, dining and living are upstairs). As I go back upstairs I pull out my phone to check on the progress of the deliciousness. The car icon is crawling towards me, but wait, its reached an intersection, now for some reason the car is spinning around in circles. What fresh hell is this? Has there been an accident? Is the car possessed? Is the driver lost? I watch as he spins on the spot for 20 seconds, before moving again, thankfully in the right direction. Must have been a glitch. The car is now 4 minutes away.

There is no more news from Ben so I know he isn’t far away. I return downstairs and watch as the driver gets stuck at traffic lights, it is the last set he will encounter before he reaches us. He moves again and there will be no further delays. He races towards me. 

At two minutes until delivery I go downstairs, push the button to unlock the gate. As the gate slowly opens, I see a pair of headlights go past slowly. The food has arrived. I hear the car door slam followed by the sound of footsteps. Wait, could it be, is that two sets of footsteps? Like a perfectly choreographed piece of dance, Ben walks down the driveways side by side with the driver, carrying that beautiful brown bag. Realising they are heading for the same destination, Ben takes the bag and driver waves a farewell, returning to his car. Ben reaches the door and we embrace, a celebration of life and the gloriousness of well timed food delivery. As we enter our doorway, he hands me the bag, and I take it upstairs.

I am unpacking the food when I hear a shout from downstairs ‘I’m just going to have a quick shower, wont be anymore than ten minutes.’ I won the battle but lost the war. With a questioning grumble from my stomach I repack the food in the bag to keep it warm and sit down at the table to wait.