There is so much you can write about Metamucil.

Church signs don’t help much. Meditation doesn’t help much. Spam doesn’t help much, except for one anonymous spam comment that arrived today:

There is so much you can write about metamucil.

Really?

Who waxes poetic about Metamucil? What can be written about Metamucil? And why did the author choose a lowercase ‘m’, instead of a capital ‘M’ to indicate the proper noun-age of the product? What a tease!

These small mysteries occupied and charmed me for five minutes, and for that, I was grateful.

And then I thought:

Perhaps it can all be distilled. And maybe it all goes back to Metamucil.

There is so much you can write about motherhood.

Daughters of mine, you are my pale, mysterious moon and my bright, fiery sun. I will always love you, no matter what. If you kill someone, I will bring you cookies in prison. And Metamucil. But try not to kill anyone.

There is so much you can write about unconditional love.

I am starting to think it does not exist in romantic love, in marriage. Nope. Unconditional love seems only to exist in parent-child relationships that are low on the dysfunctional scale. Mom, I will buy you Metamucil anytime. Just say the word.

There is so much you can write about divorce.

It goes through you much, much more slowly than Metamucil. It passes through you like 473 porcupines. Possibly more. I’m only on Porcupine #112. I continue to writhe. Stay posted.

There is so much you can write about a house that’s falling apart.

If there were Metamucil in my pipes, they would not be frozen right now, and I would not be sitting here waiting for the plumber to come. The oil guy came this morning and couldn’t get the heat to work downstairs. Why not Metamucil in our pipes? That makes sense to me, on an intuitive level.

There is so much you can write about poverty.

Just when you think you’ve gotten through a bad financial spell, your pipes freeze. Why? Oh, maybe because you were trying to be responsible and save oil by keeping the temp low. Ho ho! Overeducated, underemployed poverty with a double shot of bipolar disorder makes you feel like a freakin’ loser. No amount of Metamucil can fix that. Chocolate, maybe.

There is so much you can write about bipolar disorder.

When you’re happy, your mother asks you if you’re manic. You understand, but you don’t know the answer. When you’re sad, your mother wants to know if you’re slipping into a major depression. You don’t know if you ever climbed out of it in the first place. You’re not supposed to drink caffeine, because it makes your hands shake more, but if you don’t drink caffeine, your eyes do that fishbowl thing and you can’t drive. You’re supposed to eat lots of salt, but the lithium makes you gain weight, so French fries are out of the question. You can’t find the right words (i.e., you type ‘write’ before going back and changing it to ‘right’, and so on, something you’ve never done). You don’t remember entire conversations you’ve had. You don’t see a lot of people. You’re not being rude; your brain is saddled and bridled to keep it in check. The drugs are hardcore and the side effects many. Is your hair falling out? Will the nightmares stop? The faces? Hard to say.

There is so much you can write about Metamucil.