Yolanda tore open the package of meat and poured oil into a pan. Her plastic crocodile scrambled across the formica counter and stuck its snout into the pencil jar. The list had been sitting there dejected for days: olives, honey, spinach, wooden stir spoon, band aids, jam… Her husband was still camped out in the basement with his battered little Underwood churning out page after page of crap. Cheap, useless bits of whimsy that held not one single drop of significant meaning, which absolutely no one would enjoy or learn from. She dragged the meat into the sizzling oil and watched as the oil seized the great raw edges of the meat and crawled upwards like a terrible jungle cat. One of these days, she was going to throw a sleeping bag and a box of Cheerios down there and lock him in, let him know what it felt like, see what he wrote then.