The Philosophical Problem of Original Jam By David S. Atkinson

I woke up with strawberry jam smeared in my boxers. I have to say, it was a surprise. It’d never happened before and I’d always thought of myself as a good person.

I mean, I always put a five in the collection plate Sundays for orphans in Beverly Hills. It couldn’t have been karma, or the divine retribution of Fatty Arbuckle.

But it was disconcerting. The jam was smeared around all in there like wallpaper paste in the Nebraska state capital.

When it happened the next night, I went to see a doctor. Figured maybe it was glandular, secretions of fruit sweet jelly ducts, or maybe early onset male menopause from reading too much Steinbeck in the tub. The doc disagreed, though. Said it was psychosomatic trauma, too much yin in my Oedipal complex ego fuse combined with imbalanced rotation in my collective unconscious capacitor, even though I’d brought in the jam as a sample.

It appeared again, despite the heavy meds, so I saw a lawyer who shared an office with a furniture dentist and three pet psychics to see if she couldn’t enjoin the jam. I thought maybe she’d issue a writ or other order, full of Latin and onions, to keep it a hundred yards away from me.

But she had other plans and dreams, ones of silver yachts and high-priced crackers, and I left with seven articles of incorporation (all duly notarized) and a well-reasoned opinion that declared my right to teach monkeys French.

Meanwhile this was costing money, hundreds in soiled boxers alone. Money was tight too, tied up in Swiss Franc futures and cold baked beans.

So I started wearing toast boxers to bed, Oroweat to be precise. I had breakfast whenever I woke, just to clean things up. Sides of sliced Brie. And it all worked out, in a way. Though, I really preferred Cream of Wheat and a muffin.

© 2015 David S. Atkinson

David S. Atkinson is the author of Bones Buried in the Dirt (2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist, First Novel <80k) and The Garden of Good And Evil Pancakes (EAB Publishing, Spring 2014). His writing appears in Bartleby Snopes, Grey Sparrow Journal, Interrobang?! Magazine, Atticus Review, and others. His writing website is davidsatkinsonwriting.com  and he spends his non-literary time working as a patent attorney in Denver.

Comments are closed.