This is the last entry of my July project, being completed only now, at the end of October. It’s been a niggly little burden, an undone item on the list, that last 3%. I’ve been thinking that the problem was not being able to dream up a ramble related to such a word. I mean, how do you write about toothpicks? Well, the fact is that this is a ridiculous excuse as one could write about anything whatsoever. Clearly the difficulty is not wishing to finish.
Not wishing to finish that last little bit could be a well-known psychological phenomenon. One could imagine such a maneuver supporting perfectionism, for example. Or perhaps it’s a feature of my own particular character. Now that I think about it, Liam’s father used to call me “ninety percent Nelles,” which sounds like it could have been a joke, or good-natured teasing. I too could laugh at that last dish left in the sink! From that individual, however, the “joke” was actually not one at all. Instead, it was an expression of superiority, a criticism, an attack disguised as humor, or some other variety of put-down. On its own, such a remark would not invite such an indictment, but I’m writing from the perspective of having survived years of relentless campaigns.
When I met Joe, I was utterly shocked at how I cringed in anticipation of something awful when I felt I had done something to annoy Joe or when I knew that I had failed at some attempt. It had been more than seven years since I had left Liam’s father, and I thought that I had moved on, grown beyond that relationship. Yet, there I was, cringing as though I were about to be hit. Joe didn’t. I didn’t tell him how I felt or how happy I was that he treated me with respect. But I was seriously shocked at my own internal workings, at how the “jokes” had lingered, undigested all those years.
My internal workings do seem to require at least one unfinished project. I just have to have at least one task that niggles away occupying some corner of my mind, but never actually gets done. I’m thinking that I can make an analogy with a little bit of something stuck in between one’s teeth. That little bit of food that you intended to swallow is still there, niggling away at you. I’m also thinking that I can make an analogy with those purported jokes. You laugh and accept to be the object of the joke. But the concept stays with you, niggling away, stuck somehow. Such a little thing! Good-old ninety percent Nelles!
Ok, finally: that’s what toothpicks are for. Their purpose is to dislodge those irritating bits that lodge next to the gums and lead to periodontal disease. I think that in modern times that functionality has been replaced with more efficient dental floss. Now toothpicks sit in the kitchen cupboard waiting to be poked into cakes. Sometimes they get poked into other food to hold things together. And that’s a fine place to end my July project: in the kitchen, poking at cakes. In fact, I’d better get in there soon or Joe will get annoyed and something awful might happen! Oh wait, that reaction belongs to another life. I’d better get in there soon and Joe will be ever so delighted when dinner arrives.
