44 Chapters About 4 Men - BB Easton Page 0,16

general direction of the plastic bag carousel as quickly as my fluid-filled fingers could handle. Snatching my receipt from the printer, I dug in my heels and started thrusting that behemoth toward the exit, my sights set on the dented eight-year-old Ford Mustang parked conveniently next to the cart return.

In the midst of my attempt to escape unseen, a male employee, who was easily ten years younger than me and probably had braces, stopped me dead in my tracks by asking with all sincerity, “Did you get your discount?”

Both annoyed that my getaway had been foiled and confused by his remark, I furrowed my brow and glared at the poor little shit, waiting for him to continue.

Dropping his professional act, the kid beamed, “We’re giving fifty percent off to all the beautiful ladies today!”

Tears pricked my eyes. As if I hadn’t knocked over enough in that store already, I leaped onto that twenty-year-old hard enough to send us both careening into a gigantic tower of water cooler jugs.

Thank God they held fast or else Ken would have had to watch them pulling my lifeless body out of the blue plastic rubble on the evening news above a caption reading, This just in. Devoted mother of two and Kroger employee killed today in water cooler avalanche. Cause determined to be husband’s selfish withholding of compliments.

Oh, and don’t let me forget the time that I practically dry-humped a probably homeless, possibly tuberculosed old man at the subway station.

Although he’d only asked me for a cigarette, which was an hourly occurrence at the inner city college I attended, this particular bum had prefaced his question with, “Yo, Slim.”

I realize that doesn’t sound overtly flattering, but I was thoroughly anorexic at the time, so any reference to my being malnourished was music to my starving soul.

I threw my emaciated body at him so hard that he just about coughed up his last good lung after the attack. People could have died, Journal, all because of Ken’s refusal to say nice things to me.

That brings me to my fourth and final marital goal—getting Ken to bestow upon me an adorable, personalized nickname. My husband has never referred to me by any name other than my full, legal name. Now that I think about it, he doesn’t actually call me anything or even fucking clear his throat to get my attention before speaking to me in audible tones like a normal human. No, Ken prefers to just wait until I am running both the blender and a garbage disposal full of forks simultaneously, then he speaks near me in hushed monotones that are only technically within the human register.

Hey! You know what? Ken did call me Crazy once. Does that count as a pet name?

It was the middle of the night, and I’d accidentally woken him up while cursing and banging around in our master bathroom during a full-blown OCD flare-up2.

Ken stumbled into the bathroom, squinting into what must have felt like a supernova of light, to find me standing one-legged on the counter, dangling from a scalding hot metal wall sconce by my fingertips, while I swung a broom handle in the general direction of every shadow on the ceiling that vaguely resembled a cobweb.

I should have been embarrassed by my late-night manic cleaning frenzy, but all I remember feeling was a fuzzy, girlish giddiness when Ken sleepily raised one corner of his perfect mouth into an amused little smirk and asked, “Whatcha doing, Crazy?”

It was the closest I ever came to getting a pet name out of Ken, but since he wasn’t fully conscious when he’d said it, I don’t think I’m actually allowed to accept it. It would be like nickname rape or something. No, Crazy isn’t going to work.

I want a proper pet name—something personalized, something that refers to my most endearing qualities, like Freckles or Pink Taco or maybe even Taco Bell Grande.

Besides, if somebody at Ken’s office saw him sporting a sacred heart tattoo on his forearm with the word Crazy inked inside, the last thought they would have is, Damn, that guy must really love his wife. She’s one lucky gal. It would be more like, Man, I knew Ken was an asshole. He’s so quiet and good-looking. He had to be either a serial killer or an asshole. Glad I was right about the asshole thing. Now, I can stop carrying that can of Mace around in my pocket. That shit makes me look like I have a