Peanut Buttered

Good morning, Mom.

Or, at least by the time you find the corner of this letter peeking out from under the toaster, it will be morning. You'll be inserting two of those breakfast pastries you like into the slots of the toaster, even though you tell me I'm not allowed to even buy them because they are so loaded with sugar.

But who am I to be judging you on hypocrisy?

At this point you've set down your cup of hot coffee, and you're squinting at these words I've written with such haste, worrying. Aren't you? You think I don't know anything about you, every parent thinks that their life is a mystery from their children, but it's not.

Not with you.

And stop worrying.

Sure, I'm not home right now and usually I'm not even awake until one in the afternoon, but it's not as bad as you think. It's as bad as I think it is, but not you.

No, this isn't a suicide note. I just need to confess something.

I've needed to for a while, but I didn't want to face you when I did. I didn't want to see your reaction, your eyes narrowing at me like you wish you could fix me, your lips pursing like you've just confirmed that you're better than me because you haven't done what I've done. I didn't want your nose to wrinkle in disgust because I've lied for so long. I just wanted to skip right to the part where you forgive me.

The truth is, I'm the reason for all the horrible things that have been happening lately.

I'm the reason our family is falling apart.

It happened about a month ago. You were at work, Dad was off at the golf course with his friends, Lisa was at some girl's sleepover. No one was home. I had the house all to myself, and I was bored as hell.

Being the typical college student living with his mom that I am, I decided to go to the kitchen to see what you had picked up at the store the day before. Raw meat took up most of the space, a jug of pulp-free orange juice sat on the top shelf, a hunk of turnips burst from the veggie drawer.

Nothing appealed to my hungry stomach, which has been specifically trained to ingest exclusively alcohol and ramen noodles.

That's when I saw it.

A half-empty jar of Shmick's peanut butter. The natural stuff with the weird oil layer on top, not the one with the nasty chunks of whole peanuts that get stuck in my teeth.

The good stuff.

As soon as I saw that tangerine label, I was reminded of something I had always wanted to do since I was three years old. I was home alone with free rein to do whatever I wanted without getting in trouble, so I had the brilliant plan to get away with it.

I slammed the refrigerator closed without a second thought, the condiment bottles clinking together behind me. I raced to the front door and retrieved my keys from the little wooden hook Dad installed but to this day still doesn't use. Soon I was sitting in the driver's seat of my Jeep, my credit card in hand and a stupid grin on my face.

For some reason I thought it was a good idea to drive to the store and buy one hundred family-size jars of peanut butter.

Every night I think about the cashier's face when I showed up at her register and started shoveling it all on the conveyor belt. Her eyes were so wide, like she was scared for what she thought my bowels were about to experience. Or maybe she thought I was a crazy survivalist, but then again what kind of person preparing for the apocalypse also asks about purchasing several giant wooden spoons? In case you were wondering, they were out of stock.

I think you're starting to realize what I did, Mom, and that scares me. And take your thumb off the final digit of my phone number, I didn't even bring my phone with me. No matter how mad you are, I've made sure you will never be able to find me. Not until I'm ready to come home and face what I've done.

When I got home from the store, I double-checked that no one was back yet. I must have sat on your and Dad's bed in complete silence for five minutes because I was convinced one of you was hiding under the bed waiting to scare me.

Finally, I made my way to the bathroom with my dozens of grocery bags. I locked eyes with myself in the mirror and took a deep breath. Then I barricaded the door.

I stuck the stopper in the tub drain. And I started opening up the peanut butter jars.

It was surprisingly hard. I completely forgot about the sheet of tinfoil they have on each one, so I had to spend almost a half hour peeling freshness seals.

But soon after my painstaking hard work, I did it.

I filled the bath tub with peanut butter.

Yes, upon thinking on it, I realize that was an incredibly dumb thing for a man in his twenties to do. But do you understand how badly I wanted to do this when I was a kid? I literally dreamt about it. When I closed my eyes, I saw myself relaxing in the shower with creamy peanut butter dripping down on me. I would open my mouth wide and catch some of the droplets, and the sponge in my hand would be a massive slice of bread with perfect sandwich potential. Heaven, to me, was a bathroom filled with peanut butter.

So, after overflowing the tub with one hundred jars of the stuff, I got undressed and lowered myself into the bath.

And it was sticky.

I chuckled to myself nervously, perhaps not truly understanding what I had just gotten myself into. I tried to move my hips back and forth and, in a typical bath, the water would have sloshed with my movements and created peaceful waves, but the peanut butter did no such thing. It didn't move at all, but rather sucked me deeper into the essence of its nutty goo. My entire chest was now drenched in creamy Shmick's.

I'm sure you would have done the same thing I did. Which was panic.

Three-year-old me never realized that peanut butter was a delicious temptress with the properties of quick sand. When you and I would make cookies, our fork would always somehow find a way to slip into the bowl with the peanut butter, but I suppose I had never made the connection before.

Now I was going to die in the most idiotic way possible. I didn't want you to kick down the bathroom door and see me like that. I didn't want the mortician to have to don heavy-duty rubber gloves and lift me out of my viscous death bed, listening to the repulsive sound of my sweaty body sucking out of the peanut butter.

And also, I didn't want to die.

So I used all of my upper body strength to pull myself out. My biceps burned with the effort, and I'm sure there's still a slightly peanut butter encrusted imprint of my ass on the tub's rim, but I eventually flung myself out. I laid on the floor of the bathroom, peanut butter covering my entire body like a second skin. And I realized that you could never find out about this.

So I cleaned it up the only way I knew how. I shoved it all down the drain.

It was as difficult as it sounds. One hundred fifty ounce jars of tacky nut paste does not go down city pipes without a fight. I had to scoop up quite a lot of it and try to force it down the sink, but eventually it couldn't take it anymore. Fatty lumps of peanut butter teeming with my body's smelly oils rose up from the drain, threatening to fight back. I turned on the hot water and ran it in both the sink and the tub, which managed to move things faster.

Somehow, I got all five thousand ounces into our plumbing.

Next, I had to get rid of the rest of the evidence. I deep-cleaned the tub multiple times, using the strongest cleaners I could to ensure no peanut scent was left behind. I mopped the floor where my beaten body lay after the fact, and sprayed two full cans of air freshener.

And Dad came home. He didn't suspect a thing.

Now that I got the worst part out of the way, let me explain how this has impacted our lives since then. Obviously, this is why our water tasted strange all month and why we now owe thousands of dollars to General Plumbing downtown. In my opinion, we just got free protein and electrolytes in our water, but I understand why you'd be upset about that.

It's also why I'm still living here with you. I spent all of my money on nut butter, and now pay interest on it every month, so I lied when I said it was because I wanted to see Lisa grown up into a young woman. I mean, who in their right mind would want to deal with their sister's puberty when they could watch from afar with a bucket of popcorn? Besides, you and Dad would prefer I live somewhere else anyway. I see how you two look at each other when I'm around, like you think I've failed as an adult. It's true, but it's still not a look I appreciate seeing on the daily.

The last thing that has happened because of my peanut butter incident is that...

Well. Maybe you don't need to know about that. Just know it's all taken care of, and Jerry should get out on probation. I think. I may have misunderstood what the lawyer said over the phone.

The point is, Mom, I've felt guilty all month. I may laugh it off all the time, but I don't want you to hate me. I don't want you to look at me drowning in peanut butter and wish you gave birth to two girls, or maybe a girl and a son who isn't a total screw up.

I do try, for the things that I care about anyways. Like completely destroying the possibility of us selling our house because no one can take a piss without peanut oil splashing back up at them. Spots seems to like it, though.

I'm sorry, Mom. I hope you can forgive me within the next three days before my passport expires while I'm overseas. See? I told you you'd never be able to find me.

Your son who hopes you won't kill him too awful much,

Ollie