Life Is [A Hysterical] Box Of Shit Sandwich

Disturbances are abundant these days. Pap is progressing slowly, work is a plateu of hopelessness, friends are equally miserable and for months now I have completely forgotten how to wake up capable of humming a tune. Shaking off the greyness that usually postdate a depressive turns of events is a herculean chore. So I consciously tried not to swim in alternating waves of resentment, self-doubt, anger and paralyzing sadness. I went to catch a couple of screenings at Cinema Europa at The Shang and got another helping of what could be viewed as a vicious cosmic joke: the one I was lining up was the British film And When Did You Last See Your Father? I immediately wanted to reread The Book Of Job in the same breath as wanting to laugh at the absurdity of how things hover from misery to comedy.

“Life is like a box of chocolate,” a friend attempts to comfort me over dinner, quoting from the movie I haven't seen.“You never know what you're gonna get.”

Let it be said that I am fond of this friend of mine and I would unhesitatingly dig a grave at three in the morning for someone she just had murdered. But that quote just made me want to peg her eyeball with a dull steak knife.

“Huh?” I say.

“Huh what?” she replies, furrowing her brows.

“How can you not know what you're gonna get? You're getting chocolates!”

She stares at me, incredulous. The kind of concerned look for my very own welfare.

“You said Life is a box of chocolates.” I push the issue a bit too far, teasing, enjoying the unplanned repartee with mad glee. “Unless someone is pulling a prank and packed goat droppings, you're getting the freaking chocolates!”

She tilts her chin inward, and looks at me like she's peering from imaginary spectacles, in complete disbelief of my perceived ignorance.

“Hmpf!” she scoffs. “You just don't get it.”

“I don't. What am I supposed to get from a box of chocolates aside from chocolates?”

“Give it a rest, genius.”

“If you said 'life is like a lidded jar in a Pharaoh's tomb' I will surely not know whether I'd fish out rubies or a live cobra. But a box of chocolates...”

“Next time I'd quote from Bride Of Chuckie!”

“Chuckie says, Life is a Box of...”

“Oh shut it.”

“For dessert I'd like to have a slice from a boxed chocolate cake. I wonder what I'd get.”

“Jerk.”

I laugh. She stabs her plate of linguini with a fork, and finishes her lunch grimly.

I feel slightly better.