Alert: Clean filter

I tried to tell myself I’d just been busy, but I knew I’d hit an unparalleled level of spiritual dryness. It wasn’t for lack of trying, either.

Ok, it was sort of from lack of trying.

But I hadn’t done nothing. I’d picked up my devotionals every once and again, when the slight whisper of hunger came calling. But there in my hands, I watched psalms and proverbs turn putrid until they shriveled into a dust.

I knew I needed to try harder. Going to church would be a start, but somehow, every Sunday, I’d find myself at some poolside, or on some riverboat with my butt flipped up to the sun like an over-buttered pancake, oppressed by the heat and head sick from the mid-morning champagne and endless nothing-chatter. By Sunday night the old Catholic childhood guilt would gather up out of all my back pockets and slink across the house until it found me, usually on the couch, where a fresh new batch of self-loathing would settle in just long enough to coast through to the culmination of another weekend. It’s Monday now, which means all that snow-white guilt has only receded down to a level nine (eight and a half if I have another glass of wine).

What does one do when wasting away in a desert where the only glass of water can come from yourself? A clinking from the ice maker broke my wonderings, and I noticed for the first time that the little green light on the fridge had gone red. “Clean filter.” It told me.

“You’re telling me,” I told it back. We blinked at each other for a moment. I pulled the door free, found the tall, slender bottle, and helped myself to another glass.