Polly arrived home with the pasta sauce, and immediately went into the kitchen to give Jason a kiss.  Stopping at the kitchen door, she took in his tall, solid stature that still showed some signs of his athletic past. He had just gotten his light brown hair buzzed military style, she noticed. She loved him with short hair like that. She greeted him warmly. Putting the pasta sauce on the counter, she came around behind him, put her arms around his slightly expanding waistline, and laid her hand on his crotch.

“Hey Polly, watch it there!  I’m chopping vegetables – don’t want to chop off a finger,” Jason said, moving away from her wandering hands.

“I know, but I had an interesting day, and it has made me …”

“Oh, speaking about days, guess what the boss did today?”  Jason interrupted.  Not waiting for an answer, Jason proceeded, “Abby messed up the night audit again – it wouldn’t balance.  I have showed her so many times how to balance that, and she still can’t get it right.  I had to spend 2 hours getting the paperwork to balance.  And then, guess who gets nominated for Employee of the Month?  Abby!  I just couldn’t believe it.  I spend so much time fixing other people’s mistakes, and she gets nominated for Employee of the Month because she had a few nice guest comments!”  Jason grabbed the pasta sauce, and angrily dumped it into a pot to warm up.  “When I questioned Greg from Human Resources about it, and told him how much I do in correcting her mistakes, he ignored me! I should be running that place!”

“Well, I’m sure the Managers have the hotel’s best intentions in mind.”

“Polly, you are not helping.”  Jason pulled out the colander to drain the pasta.  “I do so much for that hotel, and they just don’t realize that if I wasn’t there, the accounts would be messed up and the whole place would be tits up.”  I would like to be tits up right now, thought Polly.

Jason snapped his fingers at her, “Pasta sauce,” he demanded, pointing to the pot.  Polly went over to stir the pot of sauce.  “Jason, this sauce smells different than usual,” she said, bending over the pot.

Jason picked up the jar, and read the label.  “Oh god damnit Polly, you bought the wrong sauce.  You bought spicy marinara instead of mushroom primavera.”

“I’m sorry Jason.  But we haven’t had this in a long time, so it will be a nice treat,” Polly said hopefully. She liked the spicy marinara sauce, even better than the mushroom one. But she did not like when he got upset.

“Polly.  I ask you to do ONE THING on your way home from your coffee ‘date’, and you can’t even get the right pasta sauce!  Spicy marinara gives me heartburn.” Jason took the pot of sauce, and hurled it into the garbage can.  He opened up the cupboard, found another bottle of sauce, and dumped it into the pot.  “Now, our pasta will be cold when this finally warms up,” Jason huffed.

“Jason, it wasn’t a coffee ‘date’.  I was interviewing for my research on female sexuality.  A male stripper. “

“Well, good for you, Polly.  I’m glad that one of us is getting to do something close to what they went to university for.”  Jason sulked over the pot of sauce, stirring irritably.

Polly tried to sympathize with Jason.  She knew how hard it was on him that he wasn’t teaching, and that he had to settle for this job.  But tonight, Jason was just rubbing her the wrong way, and she had to leave.  She didn’t want to start a fight, so she grabbed an apple and a tangerine from the fruit bowl, and headed toward the bathroom.  She could feel Jason following her with his eyes.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“I’m not very hungry, Jason.  I’m going to take a bath.”
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