She was a football widow during football season, a hockey widow during hockey season, a WWE widow every Monday night, so she took a large insurance policy out on her husband. When he questioned her motives she explained how hard it would be for her to go on without him. Such money would get her through the hard part. Besides, he was young and healthy, what was he worried about? It was insurance, you know, just in case.

            She worked at an ice cream factory pushing buttons and cleaning sticky things.  Employees were never given ice cream just to taste; there were special people to do that. After she learned what ice cream was really made of, she stopped eating it anyway. Better to stick with pure foods like Lindt chocolate. The hours at the factory were mediocre and the paycheck was more mediocre. It led to an mediocre life of an ordinary person who was about to go mad. Standing at the stop sign cracking eggs shells on your head kind of crazy. Mediocre must end.

            She started with her husband. Monday night day she met him at the door wearing only saran wrap. He asked her if it was a new fitness thing she was doing and sat down in front of the TV to watch the WWE. She took the saran wrap off in front of him, slowly. He got up and closed the curtains, turned the sound up and watched the big tanned hairless men show off on the TV.  

Tuesday night she lit candles in a trail to their bedroom and hid the TV remote under his pillow. He came home, turned on all the lights and put out all the candles in the hallway, took the garbage to the curb, and manually turned the TV on to watch hockey.

On Wednesday she tried to talk to him. He didn’t understand what she said no matter how plainly she said it. He just wasn’t listening. She was there to keep the house clean and provide him with an heir. She hated the idea. It was mental slavery. The shackles that held her were chaffing her frame of mind.

A road trip, that’s what would make things better. She loaded up her car after hubby went to work, converted the joint account balance into cash, and headed south. It was very foggy and hard to see the sides of the road. If she slowed the car behind might not see and rear-end her, but if she went to fast she might hit something in front of her. So she drove at a mediocre speed, through the gray fog fearful of what could happen out here in the real world. The taillights in front swerved to the left, just missing a body standing on the road, so she hit the brakes and stopped. There was a red car in the ditch, with the driver nervously trying to hitch a ride but no one was stopping. She hadn’t realized that the doors were unlocked until the guy ran over and jumped in.

“Did you get a phone call that I was in the ditch?” her husband asked, “My cell wouldn’t work here. Turn around at the four way and lets just go home. I’ll call in sick today,”

The woman returned to their home with her suitcases and husband safe. He turned on the TV to see what was on, and she put her head in the toilet and puked. The shadow of death passed through the fog beyond the house where the wife was silently giving thanks for her mediocre life.