He’s in the basement again. His chair’s still warm, just like the supper he slammed into his stomach. He barely spoke when you tried to make conversation.

“I want it bad, Brad. I know I shouldn’t, but it’s so tempting. Think I should?”

He just glanced up at you with those confused eyes, as if he didn’t know what the hell you were talking about.

“I was too hungover to work out this morning,” you shamefully admitted, “I don’t deserve it. But that doesn’t change the way I feel.”

“You bet it is,” he said.

“Dammit Brad, you’re not even listening to me!”

But Brad didn’t say anything. He just filled his mouth with the last bit of your Tofu Spam-loaf, folded his napkin and walked out of the kitchen.

And now he’s in the basement again.

“To hell with it,” you say, cutting yourself a slice of chocolate cream pie, “I’ll work out tomorrow. And this time I mean it!”

Feeling particularly naughty, you rush to the fridge for a tall bottle of the High Life and those emergency smokes hidden in the freezer.

“At least someone knows how to treat me right,” you mutter through a mouth full of beer and meringue. But not even booze and sweets can keep your tears at bay. Salty drops fall from your cheeks. “Oh Jesus, Brad, what are you doing down there?”

And then it hits you: maybe the girls were right about Brad. Maybe all he wants out of life is home-shopping and not-so-mutual masturbation. You thought you could change him, “I got him to quit the bowling team,” you’d tell them, “and he hasn’t been to those damn public bath houses in almost a month!”

You were so much stronger then. You were the kind of woman you always wanted to be. If only you could be that woman again, if only you could pick yourself up and march down those steps and tell him “You’re my man, and I’m your girl, so let’s do something about it!”

Or you could sit there with a beer in your hand, a smoke in your mouth and chocolate cream pie drippin’ from your chin.