Vitamins

In the spirit of St. Patty's Day I thought I would do my post in green. Isn't that multimodal of me?

Anyways.. sorry I haven't posted too much - but I have been reading! I have read a couple more stories, but there's one that I wanted to write about now. It is called "Vitamins" and it was... interesting. It was about this woman who was a struggling vitamin saleswoman and her cheating husband. Alcohol played a big role in this story.. in fact, I don't think there was a page that didn't describe some kind of drink or drunken encounter. The husband gets jealous when his wife's female employee hits on her, even though he is trying to seduce another woman (who is also working for his wife).

Eventually the husband succeeds and he and this woman go to a "spade place" for a couple drinks where they meet this black man who has just returned from Vietnam and has an ear as a trophy, which he shows to everyone. Because of this man the woman has second thoughts about what she is doing and decides to quit her job and move to Portland, because "there must be something in Portland. Portland's on everybody's mind these days. Portland's a drawing card. Portland this, Portland that. Portland's as good a place as any. It's all the same" (262). The last lines of the story are: "I knocked some stuff out of the medicine chest. Things rolled into the sink. 'Where's the aspirin?' I said. I knocked down some more things. I didn't care. Things kept falling" (263).

I think this goes along with the feelings of despair that the wife in "So Much Water" often felt. She talked about nothing mattering anymore. I get this vibe in a couple of the stories that I have read. I think that this is definitely something that could lead to a thoughtful discussion: what makes people give up? What makes people stop caring?