When Jennifer neglects to pay bills for months, not because she doesn�t have the money but because she�s lazy, Jennifer slaps Jennifer on the wrist. Especially when she almost gets the power shut off with her inconceivable negligence.

Jennifer shouldn�t be so hard on herself. She was thinking more the other day about the origin of her neurosis and the scene of her and her family at their house in Florida popped into her head. She and her sister Karen had painstakingly recreated their grandmother�s delectable blinis, complete with applesauce and sour cream, and were very excited to share it with their father and the rest of the family. See, their mother had passed away only a month or so before, and little moments were cherished and clung to. Food and music and movies became not only a way to temporarily escape grief but also a necessary repose and a time when they felt happily connected to one another.

Jennifer grabbed a whole bunch of forks from the large fork section of the usually meticulously arranged utensil tray, and placed them lovingly on the spotless glass table with cloth napkins, fold-side in, fringe right and bottom. As she and Karen served the blinis they waiting to see the reaction of their father, as he tasted his mother�s own recipe.

�So how are they?� Jennifer couldn�t wait to ask.

�You gave me a SMALL FORK,� her father barked back at her, laughing at how stupid she was, through teeth that barricaded the carefully prepared potato pancakes.

She felt her face collapse and a knot formed in her solar plexus as she frowned, �Well, someone�maybe the cleaning lady? Must have put small forks in the large fork slot. I don�t think any of us would.� It was true. No one in the family would ever dream of putting a small fork in the large fork area, given the constant microscope-up-the-ass reactions they had received their whole lives for committing similar travesties.

As if it fucking mattered one iota what the hell kind of fork it was. Her father lived for these moments, where he could �vent [his] spleen� as he called it. Since his wife died he had been so nasty to them all, as they bowed their heads like broken horses to let him grieve his way. They would grieve on their own later. Even if it meant sitting through the same mix tape, again and again on the car stereo on the drive from Jersey to Florida. A tape he had constructed for Christmas in search of catharsis, for Christmas, as a tribute to their mother, and contained songs including, and of equal heaviness, as Dean Martin�s slow and melancholic version of �Blue Christmas.� They could hardly choke down the self-medicative Krispy Kremes and stared blankly out at orange fields while their father carefully tapped the ashes off of his Cohiba through the one-inch opening of the window and cursed at old ladies who cut him off.