Last Jim-Jam Standing
It is just past seven, and I’ve had dinner. I’m seated contently on the couch. Inertia of rest versus responsibility of being a dish-washing adult? 1–0. The savoury after-taste of the dosa lingers. The mind realises it is not too content with this circumstance— culinary endings should be sweet, as should all endings. The mind craves dessert. The body agrees.
The eyes scan the kitchen countertop. It is but a bleak desert devoid of dessert. The eyes widen as they rest on the cookie jar. There is a packet of Jim-Jams inside it. The mind is dismayed. It knows that those aren’t just any Jim-Jams. Those Jim-Jams, my good friend, are reserved. They are reserved as my sister wilfully demonstrates as she walks over, opens the jar, picks up a JimJam and walks away as its rightful possessor should — without even a glance. You see, we have an understanding.
Now, at this point, I understand that this article may seem to be the story of a girl who couldn’t have her JimJams for whatsoever reason. Tch tch, we’re all very sad, moving on. The thing is, this article isn’t about Jim-Jams or a lack thereof. The scenario I have put a lot of verbal effort into playing out for you above arose because a certain someone sucks at preserving goodies. Especially of the edible kind. It is I. I suck at preserving edible goodies.
For as long as I can remember, a chocolate hasn’t ever come into my possession that stayed in my possession for more than a day. This is because it would be ingested within this time frame. To sit somewhere and mind my own business as a chocolate waited to have its papery silver cover peeled off was beyond me. It is at this juncture that I would like to say that there are two kinds of people in this world:
- The kind that eats their damn chocolate whole
- The kind that breaks it into several pieces over the span of several days for the sheer joy of spiting those who don’t (this may or may not be a biased viewpoint resulting from years of personal agony)
My darling older sister you see, responsible young woman that she always was, is of the second kind. Post-lunch, I would gleefully unwrap and consume my entire treat while she would smugly break off the tiniest piece of hers, give me a sister-knows-best look, and leave the rest of her treat in the fridge for me to stare regretfully at in the coming days. The coming days came, as coming days do, and they found me staring enviously at my sister who would continue relishing bits of her treat for the rest of the week while I resorted to eating sugar out of the tin. She definitely caught me staring, but in this regard, she showed no mercy. All she would do is give me the you-had-it-coming look. And I think that’s okay. It was her trying to set an example for me in the little ways that she could back then, and it can be quite endearing when you think of it years later through that lens.
But years later, I find myself on the couch, 23 years old, craving dessert, and watching my sister eat a Jim-Jam. What is left of my packet of Jim-Jams (read the plastic cover) lies in the trash. Do I use this self-awareness to start saving up my treats for the long haul as well? Absolutely not. There are few things in life more pleasurable than finishing an entire packet of six Jim-Jams in one go, and I will not be giving that up so I can feel just a sixth of that pleasure across six dreary days.
Eat your whole damn treat. And if you need more treats, buy more. Because this is the twenty-first century and capitalism reigns and nobody deserves to feel this kind of pressure and no treat deserves to be divided into little sub-treats. There is no such thing as a sub-treat. Anymore. Thank you.
