Where’s My Rose?

- Intermezzo -

One time, I asked my dad what if.

What if toothpaste actually made your teeth worse, and the medical industry, along with every dentist, were all in on it just to make a profit?

But I stopped when his eyes crossed and steam started to come out of his ears.

Like my dad, my uncle came to this country with nothing in his pockets. One of his first jobs was washing dishes. He saved up, bought a gas station, then a whole chain of them and amassed a fortune.

My dad started as a janitor. Saved up until he bought his first dry cleaners, which was very successful. So he bought another, and then another one.

Our fortune dwindled.

We moved up north, ran a liquor store. I joined up later, in my last year of high school. I assumed I’d be taking over the family business after I graduated. Never even thought about going to college until my dad said he mailed in an application and I had been accepted.

Makes me wonder where I’d be today had I not gone.

Some years later I decided to be a pianist. I sent in a transfer application, practiced my ass off for a few months and miraculously passed my audition.

Once I got in I practiced even harder, 6 to 8 hours a day. Hard work eventually pays off.

It didn’t—but hey, I met my wife there.

My dad didn’t understand why I was ducking his calls. There's no way I could tell him I needed a break from the family, that I wanted to be alone for the holidays.

It wasn't that I was miserable, I just realized I was exhausted.

A long time ago, I thought I would do something special for Valentine’s Day. Instead of giving my wife a bouquet, I would give her a single rose every day once February started.

Fourteen of them—get it?

I soon regretted it. The third day she came home and said, 'where’s my rose?'

Where’s my refund?

I was thinking of all this late at night, less than a week before the year ended.

My wife and I had gotten into an argument earlier that day.

But it was less an argument and more that I had removed myself as a target. With her unresolved anger, she took down the photos of us in our bedroom. But I wasn't upset at all, I saw it as a removal of a past pattern I no longer participated in.

All of a sudden I heard this intermittent BEEP! BEEP!

I discovered the source: it was coming from the carbon monoxide detector downstairs.

There was no leak, the machine had simply expired.

I bought it five years ago.