Perhaps hunger drove me to this wayward path. Perhaps success did. Perhaps I can wash myself of all culpability by blaming Mercury.

Perhaps there is no excuse.

Perishables? What the hell was I thinking? I have all the tea in China and with it the responsibilities of Solomon. It is crushing. The power over life and death, freshness and rot, is paralyzing.

Should I eat a grapefruit at the peril of the bread? Should I make a sandwich as the bananas blacken? My subjects stare at me with their non-existent cartoon eyes, pleading their cases, promoting their virtues. My heart can't bear it.

My refrigerator thinks this is funny. I hear it as I tend to the coffee pot. A towering phallus screaming, Feed me Seymour! is enough to drive a man to madness, you know.

Perhaps I should blame my employer, who has insisted on paying me on time and in full. Fucking asshole.

When did you first notice you were an adult?