proximity

I am to spend the next 144 hours with my mother. After the 36 already spent together, that is a total of 180. That's a long time.

The push-me pull-you has been sticking it's evil jaws into my arms. A day in the life of a piece of gum. Starting out fresh and in it's foil, only to end up on my shoe— or worse my hair. People leave their ABC gum stuck any-ol-place; I lean back and a thick glob of nasty, sticky spit drenched gum fuses behind my left ear. I whip open my switchblade and cut the lock out. I have curly hair, the missing chunk is noticeable only in that it sticks out from my head at a right angle.

The real kicker comes when the person who left their gum stuck to the back of (my) dining room chair shirks responsibility. "You said that you were not going to be back for a couple of hours. I figured that I could just let the flavor freshen up for a few, and then really get to business". You see they are an aficionado, a real gum connoisseur. It is their duty to not only test, but keep accurate records of a variety of flavors over a period of time. "But,' I stammer almost helpless to this concrete logic, 'it's my chair, and why the f*ck are you even in my house?"