That damn reuben sandwich!

The great emotional breakdown of 2012 started with a latke reuben from Rye Deli.

It had been months since wife and I had gone out to enjoy this city that we moved to six months ago with a job for her and dreams of continuing a career for me. Months of having to scrimp and save. Months of saying "Well, we can't go to this musician or comedian that we are hard core fans of, but once I get a job, things'll change."

Then on a tip from Andria, I started checking out the local library for free tickets to local places. The hope was to score tickets to the Minnesota Zoo and go there Thursday. Wife was taking her first paid vacation ever. I was working a temp job for three weeks and now had extra cash for gas money, and we had a plastic bin and bankers box full of books to sell to fund this excursion.

Unfortunately, the zoo tickets are a hot item at the library, only put out randomly, and they go fast. I've checked 4 times since last week, and never got lucky. We tried on Thursday and got nothing. I was determined to give wife a good day out though. We didn't know what we would do, but after selling the books, we had some money to do it.

Wife had read about Rye in pretty much every Twin Cities magazine, and ever since the New York honeymoon, she's wanted to visit. So we pulled in on Thursday afternoon, an empty time at Rye, and our eyes boggled at the menu, the fish on display, and promises of hand carved meats.

I ordered a brisket sandwich and poutine to share. Poutine at Rye is fries and cheese curds smothered in an onion-heavy gravy, and it makes you want to sell your unborn for the promise that you will have it again, soon.

Wife ordered a latke reuben, which is a reuben, but with latke instead of rye.

Her sandwich came out first. A pile of corned beef between two burned looking pieces of latke. She took a bite, and was instantly transported back to our honeymoon, wolfing down a pie tin full of corned beef from Carnegie Deli with a plastic fork in our hotel room across the street. She piled a fork full, carefully balancing the ingredients to give me the perfect bite. A bit scared, I put the fork in my mouth, and my eyes misted. The meat must have been soaking in angel blood and puppy dreams for a week. The latke was blackened, but tasted unburned, just perfectly crisp.

My sandwich was not as good. I'm not a fan of mustard, but it happens so seldom that a sandwich has mustard that I don't make sure to hold it every time.

But that reuben.

Damn.

Shit.

We sat there, I scraped mustard off my sandwich. Wife occasionally gave me more bites, which I took without hesitation.  I usually pick better than her, but this time it was her turn to share.

We then took in the Life Like exhibit at the Walker, which was fantastic. We could have gotten free tickets for this, but it was just one of those things where we didn't know we would be going until we were driving by it. The Life Like exhibit was one of those rare times where my background in modern lit and themes helped me to decode and understand the pieces on display, while still having a gut emotional reaction to them.

(not my picture)

We coasted through Friday, but I got a rejection from a job I sorely wanted and hadn't heard from for weeks. She was nice about it, but it still stung. With the temp job coming to a close, it started to feel like we were once again approaching that dark precipice of not knowing how to make it through another month.

On Saturday, I woke to check my email, and before I was gone 10 minutes, wife was calling for me. I was annoyed.

The off feeling didn't stop. I went to Cub to grab some groceries. Came home and cooked bacon and egg sandwiches. I rented two movies from a redbox. I know wife's tastes are different than mine, but I figured I had scored a good medium by getting two kids movies. Hugo and Tintin. I had to talk her into Hugo, which annoyed me, since I got it specifically for her. She had wanted to go out for St. Patties day, but we couldn't afford it. Instead, I made corned beef. But nothing seemed to be good enough. I was looking down the hole of joblessness once again, and I didn't know what was going to happen. The reuben had cracked the emotional wall on Thursday, and the art gallery had stuck a crowbar in that wall, but Saturday's fights with the wife took a bazooka to it.

We were lying in bed together at about 3, because we had had enough snipping, and nothing was going right between us, and the weight of everything just. Snapped.

And I started crying. Deep sobs. Like the kind a 13 year old girl would have if she came to the deep realization that Robert Pattinson was way too old for her and would never, ever, ever be interested and the best she could hope for was the scabby acne guy named Stan from fourth period. Holy shit did I break. And wife just jumped on, wrapping her arms around me, calling me back from the abyss. Telling me it would be all right. I cried like I couldn't breathe. I wore my way through eight Kleenix. I felt like I was doing sit ups, the deep stomach shit that was going on.

One hour later.

Me: What the hell was that?

Wife: It was you letting go for once. You haven't done that since we moved.

Me: Holy shit.

Wife: It's nice to know you are still human. I was worried. No one should be able to do what you've done for six months without that happening.

Me: Thank you for being here.

Wife: Hey, it's my turn. Howabout we watch Tintin?

Me: OK.

Epilogue: Tintin is frackin awesome.