Number One, Ketchup Only: Tiny True Stories #9
How enjoying a burger made me think about desire, power, and silence
Welcome!
to the ninth edition of Tiny True Stories! If you’re new here, hello, and thank you! I’m so happy to see you. If you’re new, this is a monthly newsletter where I share supershort true stories you can read in 10 minutes or less. I also share recommendations for other things I loved this month—food, books, poems, memes, anything. Tiny does not just mean short—I often write about the forgotten, small details of our lives, where most of us spend most of our time.
Honestly, I love writing these, but in what’s sure to be a nightmare election year, with an ongoing genocide I can scroll past on my phone, and when five (five!) people I know well have lost parents in the last year, I wonder what’s the point in writing these. This is always the question writers have—who needs this story? Who wants to read about burgers when the world is ending? (Yes, I wrote about burgers this week.) When it’s someone else, it’s easy to say that, of COURSE literature is important, of course art, music are important, especially when the world is ending. I am reading Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars, which is only a slight satire of a novel in which incarcerated people fight to the death for their freedom in broadcast sports- and reality TV-style “entertainment.” Yes, I think, we need this. I’m reading Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha’s book Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear and thinking, yes, we need this. But when it’s your own writing, it’s much harder to answer that question.
To be clear! I am not asking for affirmation, because I know you’re nice and lovely and might want to help. But I think it’s a good question to ask: what can we do for the world? What can we offer?
I don’t know. I know that I was thinking about burgers and about desire and about how often people are made to be quiet about their desire. I’m thinking about the many ways we are all made to be quiet, lesser, to just go along with what’s expected of you. I sometimes wake up with blue and green squares in my mind: thinking about the blocks of text in my two group chats, blue and white in one, green and white in the other; my friends telling their own tiny stories, and how much I need them, look forward to them, these tiny glimpses into what matters to them. I read them and they make my faraway friends closer, bolster me somehow by just knowing the patchwork of joys and disappointments and grief in our days. It makes me feel more alive by just seeing how others are living and doing their best.
I won’t pretend I can be that for you, but I do know this is what I have to offer. (I keep calling to ask my reps demand a ceasefire; if you’re in California, ballots are very confusing with your party affiliation and who you can vote for, so clarify you’re registered the way you want!)). Here’s a small tiny thing—a story about how fast I can eat a burger, and about why that’s important to me.
Today’s Tiny True Story
Number One, Ketchup Only
When I was pregnant I once went to the In-N-Out drive-thru as soon as they opened. A burger and a black-and-white milkshake at 10:30 in the morning. For a minute I thought, well, it would be nice if I was craving a salad—but dismissed it. The baby wants what they want, insatiable, without apology. The burger was delicious, hot, the bun crispy on the edges. After I ate it, the only thing I felt was better.
At the hospital, it was far too soon to give birth but something was stabbing me in the belly, so I waited five hours to see a doctor for five seconds. Then I waited again for an ultrasound. The male tech, when he finally arrived, muttered to himself while he worked, said nothing to me. I know he’s not supposed to say anything, and yet after minutes and minutes of measuring and clicking and tears gathering in my eyes, wondering if this baby is dying like the last one, please, just tell me, is everything okay fell from my mouth. Sorry, I said. He seemed surprised to hear my voice. But I had to wait some more for the doctor to come in for five more seconds. Less than a minute of language to tell me that me and the baby were both okay. I waited even longer, silently, for someone to tell me it was okay to go home. I finally poked my head out of the door and said, Sorry? I haven’t eaten for hours.
In high school I once impressed friends with how fast I could eat a burger. I told everyone about it. I was so proud. It was a simple burger, just plain with ketchup, okay, but listen: In my car, at a stop light, I could unwrap the burger and eat the entire thing before the light turned green. I’m still proud of this feat. Not for the burger, exactly, but for being a young girl who loudly consumed something whole, and who had not yet learned to be sorry for it.
Tell me something you’re done apologizing for. Comments are open!
Letters of Recommendation
Ruby Bhogal (from Season 6 of the Great British Baking Show) is doing a series on Instagram: “Around the World in 80 Cakes.” They are all a delight.
I just got introduced to the minimalist Mary Robison thanks to Kathy Fish’s excellent Substack and I am OBSESSED. Please join me in my new cult by reading Robison’s flash story, “Yours.”
For anyone is who is afraid to speak up: this quote from Sari Botton’s interview with Lyz Lenz in Memoir Land:
What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?
There is so much in the world that uses fear to silence you. Don’t comply. Don’t capitulate to the forces that would rather have you hide. Do the work. Do your work. Do it boldly and without fear. I believe in the power of the narrative voice as provisional self. I don that voice whenever I am worried; it gives me the courage to say what I need to say. Even if Lyz the person is afraid, Lyz the writer is bold.
As always, thank you for being here in my tiny corner. See you next month.