Sensations/Situations for Which There Should Be a Six to Seven Syllable German Word But Inexplicably None Exist
art by Amanda Carmona
Licking your finger with just enough saliva to gather the last of the potato chip crumbs at the bottom of the bag in a single swipe and remembering the small bag mother used to put in your lunch. The chips would pretty much be all smashed up before you got the chance to eat them, so you used a spoon. The other children laughed at first, but it soon became the fashion at which point you abandoned the habit.
Realizing the universe’s undeniable tendency towards entropy and how it relates to your continued search for parking.
Getting one’s foreskin caught in one’s zipper early in the morning, much earlier than when you normally get dressed because you have a morning meeting but though you’d like to, this is no reason to call in sick, so you got to work anyway despite the sharp pain that dulls but takes hours to truly go away.
The release of removing one’s bra after an especially hot and trying day.
Unpeeling an orange in one continuous motion while thinking of those less fortunate than you dying of scurvy.
Trying to blow up a balloon only to have the air forced back into your lungs repeatedly, until it feels like a metaphor for every failure you’ve experienced. Soon your cheeks tingle and you run out of air and wonder if it will always be thus.
A pretzel rod becoming stuck sideways between the molars on either side of the roof of your mouth.
Accidentally peeing your pants while forcing out a laugh at a joke made by a person with little to no sense of humor who insists on telling jokes anyway.
When Mrs. Blankenhoff informs you she’s run out of regular chocolate ice-cream and has only the non-dairy kind left and you know it’s impossible to ever convince yourself it tastes the same, also, though young, your youth is quickly running out.
A trip to the zoo when you find howler monkeys masturbating to be erotic, uncomfortably so in fact.
The fear of getting on the scale of your doctor’s office, not because you’ve gained weight, in fact you’ve shed a few pounds, but they always want you to take your shoes off and you’re at the end of a laundry cycle and are wearing embarrassing socks, shot full of holes.
Believing your mechanic is overcharging you so you remain in the waiting room after telling him you need to check with your partner about the repairs but instead review your search history because you looked up the problem before bringing the car in and had been convinced it’d be much less expensive.
Removing the lint from the dryer screen in one solid block as you think of the bedsheets still damp and of the spring lover whom you abandoned as soon as summer arrived. You’d grown bored with them, with their neediness, with their inability to match your passion, with their tedious personality disorder that was really so basic, it made you yawn.
