Get Off My Arse, Tom

It’s five o’ clock in the morning and Tom is giving me shit.

I don’t like his tone. He’s judging me.

I don’t know when it started but lately inanimate objects are getting on my case:

No matter where I turn, cars, tissues, benches, pillows, and other lifeless objects scream at me to change the world, to live every day like it’s my last, and to Win Big. It’s like they’ve all have found their voice, and apparently it’s the demanding voice of my late Middle Eastern father, haunting me from the grave, and reminding me that I’m not enough.

I move my toothbrush up and down in my mouth, trying to ignore Tom but it’s easier said than done.

In my crunchy granola hippie years, (to which I hope to return in my sixties), I ditched toothpaste altogether because of all the crap they load into it. Learning that it’s the brushing not the toothpaste, that cleans your teeth, made it easy to get rid of.

But when I started to miss that minty flavor, I found Tom who was slightly less toxic. Tom made me feel fresh. Tom made me feel healthy. Tom made me feel good.

Now, at the crack of dawn, Tom’s giving me shit.

Where does Tom get off telling me what to do anyway?

Who the hell does he think he is?

Then Tom starts with the bragging.

Tom says this without a trace of irony. As though I’m some sort of schmuck. As though I can’t, with one click, soon discover that Tom is not as good as he pretends to be.

That shuts him up good.

Still, Tom’s not entirely wrong. I should take his sage advice because there could always be more good in the world. I should do a little good. I should do much good.

And yet, hearing Tom’s demands first thing in the morning, makes Brainy want to rebel. It makes me want to do bad. Maybe not as bad as Tom’s parent company, maybe not as bad as dumping seventy-eight billion tons of plastic into the oceans, but a little bad.

The sun’s barely risen and suddenly I want to waste gallons of water. I want to leave lights on, I want to grab handfuls of plastic bags when I shop, and I want to mix up my cardboards with my perishables.

It’s five fifteen in the morning, and as I put away my toothbrush one thing is abundantly clear:

I should never have started with the bloody toothpaste again.