Adapting to Captivity

Temporary visa extended

Now that my departure date is uncertain and I’m settling into a home routine, the novelty of my presence has worn off and I’m taking some flak for my behavior. Interrogations have ensued. My mom demands to know if I’ve forgotten how to do the laundry since I returned home, but I thought I was just stealthily adding my clothes to the already mounting hamper. She pleads with me to clean my bathroom as I track beach sand into the living room. I can suffer days mopping the convenience store but agonize over chores at home.

It’s been about a month and my moving boxes still taunt me. I managed to pare through my clothes but the desk in my room remains cluttered with remnants of high school. Personally, I’m fine with a shrine to my glory days, and I don’t get a conniption if a stray hair escapes my brush to find the bathroom floor. I used to use temporary vagrant status as an excuse to avoid permanent cleaning habits, but now that the gypsy caravan has returned to my parents’ house I’m trapped in their domain. Hence, I have to abide the rules or be subjected to endless nagging.

It’s a jungle out there

The hardest part of adapting to captivity is sharing the peanut butter. My mom is appalled at my double dipping, knife wielding habits. She finds it more distressing than my odd-hour eating and sweaty running clothes. My manners have always been an element of contention, but my peanut butter habit is evolving into grounds for eviction.

Living solo I could hunker down with a jar of peanut butter and a knife to get my fix for the better part of an evening. In fact, peanut butter constituted the better part of my diet, and I was never chastised for it.

Sticky stubbornness

The other day, I returned home to find a jar labeled explicitly for my parents, and no peanut butter for me. My after-work snack already ruined, I raced to the store to fetch a jar which I labeled in kind. With my consumption out-pacing the rest of the family dramatically, I was forced to transition to their jar or suffer withdrawals for a night. After all, it wasn’t quite time for my weekly jaunt to Wal-Mart, and a cashier can’t afford extravagances like Whole Foods peanut butter when trying to scrape together air fare for an unwarranted vacation. Gorging on the golden goodness, I came up for air to realize that I had unabashedly finished their jar of Skippy.

Now, unless I purchase my own jar, there’s a moratorium on peanut butter in my house. I’m not sure if my stubbornness can outlast the protein junkie in me, and I’m on the verge of severe withdrawal. I tried to plead that you can’t limit the availability of a commodity like peanut butter for fear of shortages and black market dealings, but my parents weren’t buying it.

If you need me, I’ll be at the store getting a jumbo tub of Skippy.