A recipe for disaster.

“I’m hungry.” Rich leapt to his feet. Pretty spry for a seventy-eight year old dude he thought, only to be interrupted by severe knee pain.

Anita stared at the television, not once looking up, “Then eat.” She was watching a British documentary about the O.S.S.

Rich winced as he tried to straighten out his leg. “I don’t know what I want to eat.”

“Have some of those octopus chips.”

“Nah, I want something savory.”

After fifty-five years of marriage, Anita knew what this really meant, after all, she had gone through these motions thousands of times before. She would have to get off her ass in the middle of her show to cook something up. She tried to remember a time when this was what she wanted, her mind came up with lots of nothing. As she got up, every single bone in her body creaked, sounding like paper crumpling.

“Okay, okay. I’ll cook something up.” Anita went into the kitchen, boiled some water, crushed up the bag of octopus chips, and made soup.