Poor Richard pretended to be important

My job when we met and for a little bit after was I wrote maxims that were printed on the side of paper cups, which what more honest thing was there than decorating future garbage with empty wit. I took ironic pleasure in it, had pictures of Franklin and Rochefoucauld on my desk, thumbed through almanacks looking for a saying worth modernizing.

Like what, she said, an email in the inbox is worth two on the server? This while she cut up onions in my dank and cluttered downtown apartment with me making rice. Normally I would make fun of my work too, but on a fourth date cooking dinner together I didn’t much want to feel ridiculous about my worthless job and how I took such pride in it in secret. She said I’m sorry that was pretty bitchy wasn’t it, and I said no, I know I’m superfluous, a cheap appropriator.

She said she liked little touches in the day, the way it made a brain seem worth having. She sniffled from the onions and I pushed the button on the rice cooker, and then we were turned around and kissing, which the kitchen was small enough that we didn’t have to step towards each other to do it.

We kissed like that for a minute, her breath a little sour and mine probably too. I wondered what she was thinking there with her eyes closed and her tongue playful, whether she was thinking how she meant what she said or of how else she would have to patronize me or if she was even not thinking at all, like what if she was able to enjoy a thing for what it was, what if when she kissed she just thought about the kiss. I didn’t know what to do with someone like that.