This Moldy Spaghetti Sauce is a symbol of my love for you. Or perhaps not.

When I see a ladybug I think of my cousin. She loves ladybugs. Even sports a tattoo of one on her foot. To me, the ladybug is a symbol that reminds me of my fun loving, not afraid to laugh out loud cousin.

When I see an apple I think of my aunt. Her kitchen was decorated with apples. Cheery red walls and apple topped canisters on the counter. I can't help but smile when I see a kitchen towel designed with a screen printed apple for sale. There's my aunt. Right there.

My relationship with Big V has symbols, too. 

I remember when Big V finally got around to putting up the shutters. The house had just been painted and those shutters were the first step in our process of beautifying the outside of our home. Don't you just love the shutters? I'd swoon. Big V put them up just for me!

Those shutters were a symbol of my knight in shining armor. The man I would happily be marooned on a desert island with. Those shutters showed the world that he was my one, my all, my everything.

Relationships, like life, have seasons.

Currently we're in the Symbol of Spaghetti Sauce Season.

Six days ago, I lovingly prepared a boiling pot of water and dumped some pasta in it before rushing out the door to get to my curtain call in time. I had exactly 27 minutes between arriving home after work and hustling out the front door to get to the show. In those 27 minutes I chose to feed my loving partner.

After quickly applying another coat of mascara and brushing my teeth, I managed to drain the noodles and take out a jar of sauce. Now, let me explain. This is not just any sauce. This is my secret sauce. As in I want to make you believe I can cook so I'm gonna use this $8 jar of sauce that seriously tastes like heaven in a jar. Or, as it's more commonly referred to: Big V, you have no taste buds of which to speak so there is no way in hell I'm wasting this phenomenal $8 jar of sauce on you. Go get the Ragu. 

But I felt bad because I haven't been home lately and, well, he was agreeing to actually sit through my show later... so I set the jar on the counter and said, "Here. You can use some of this - BUT REMEMBER TO PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE WHEN YOU ARE DONE. If you don't, I will have to kill you."

The next morning I saw the jar - half used - still sitting on the counter.

My wonderful, beautiful, heavenly Victoria Arrabbiata sauce - left to rot alone on the kitchen counter.

"Uh, why is this still here?"

Oh. I must have forgotten it. I'll put it back in the pantry.

"It can't go back in the pantry; it's open. You have to put it in the fridge. I told you to put it in the fridge. Why isn't it in the fridge?!"

Fine. I'll put it in the fridge.

"You can't put it in the fridge!"

You just said to put it in the fridge.

"Yesterday. Yesterday I said to put it in the fridge."

No. Just now. Just now you just said 'put it in the fridge.' You said it like thirty times. How can you not remember?

"How can you not remember I said it last night?! This was my only jar of good sauce - and now it's filled with germs and eColi and the Black Plague!"

It's fine.

"No it is not fine. It says right on the label to 'refrigerate after opening.' That means, after you open it - you put. it. in. the. fridge. It's not that difficult."

Well, since it's not that difficult maybe you could figure out what to do with it.

"Me?! You're the one that should have to throw it away now that you wasted it!"


And so it sits.

On the counter.

Where it has remained for the past six days.

Getting moldy.

A jar of spaghetti sauce symbolizing the stubborness of the active participants in this relationship. (Although, he did admit that it was one mighty fine jar of sauce.)

What's your symbol?