First Through the Ribbon

when upon grasping in the fridge for a bottle of hot sauce amidst the myriad of styles collected for the taste, her/his hand grasped hold of a teriyaki hot sauce, something of which s/he him/herself thought that s/he’d created one early eve, upon returning from work with a hungry stomach & nothing but frozen potatoes to microwave & just a little butter to be had--- whence administering the cayenne sauce, of which Frank’s was all that roamed free in the vacant box of ice, s/he’d chosen to mix it with the soy sauce left over from an attempt at a Schezwan dish a few nights earlier & in retrospect, the taste was something that s/he swore s/he’d repeat, given the right circumstances & the right desire. when s/he was younger & tinkering in her/his dad’s garage, s/he nailed two leather straps to two corresponding planks of wood, then slipping her booted feet in, s/he got atop a snow hill & slid down with her/his weight a few feet, before falling face down in the snow that had not yet really packed in & alas, s/he didn’t let the light bulb glow further, instead, discovering with the rest of us later that this invention would come to be known as the “snowboard” & that “snowboarding” would become a zillion dollar industry--- so, one can imagine that when s/he saw that some company who makes hot sauces, had already put two & two together, mixing soy sauce with a cayenne based sauce, s/he was quite dissatisfied to say the least & after unscrewing the cap, licking the top to check the taste, the anger built up inside & s/he him/herself felt that s/he was one step away from smashing the bottle on the kitchen floor in a fit of rage, because s/he’d have to go on working the rest of his/her life, when joe/jen schmo would get to live out the rest of their lives sipping Mai Tais, greased up in coconut oil on some beach--- but then that light bulb did kick in, if not better late than never & s/he did not smash the bottle, because after all, it was goddamned tasty.