What's in a jar of mayonnaise?

It is day 1,057 of being unemployed. I know because I checked the calendar to confirm and then reconfirm the date. Vic’s birthday is a month away, but I don’t need to check the calendar for that. And I don’t need to reconfirm the impending weeks to know I won’t be able to buy him presents again. I tuck the calendar behind my desk and turn off the lights in the living room. It’s barely 9 am, and I detect the first warning signs of a massive hunger attack. Yesterday I ran out of mayonnaise. We were making egg and turkey sandwiches in the kitchen and my mom suggested I scrape the sides of the jar with a butter knife in order to reach the last dabs of mayo. I peered intently inside the jar. Perhaps I had missed a teaspoon of mayo and it was secretly laying in wait for the moment to be scooped out. I pressed my face against the rim of the jar, half expecting layers of thick, creamy, tangy sauce to materialize, at least for one or two crummy sandwiches, but nothing happened. There was no mayo there. I took a step back and glanced at my mom standing next to me. She wiped a smudge of mayo off my nose and tucked a couple of strands of hair that had fallen in my eyes behind my ears. The kids were starting to get restless while sitting at their respective places around the kitchen table, and I detected the potential for a meltdown if I didn’t get these sandwiches out fast. My niece, nephew and Vic were itching to rip open the bags of chips my mom had bought at the grocery store across the street. She bought everything. I gazed at the loaf of bread resting on the counter and the avocado and tomato she had sliced. There were still drops of water dangling on the tips of the spinach leaves she had rinsed in the sink. I closed my eyes for a brief second to choke down the anxiety that was starting to creep in. Then their laughter interrupted my descent and brought me back to the task at hand. I cracked a half smile at my mom who was starting to get that look of concern in her eyes. I couldn’t figure out what to do with my jumpy hands, so I pressed them down against the counter. There was no point in saving the jar. It was indeed empty. Nothing was as clear to me in the dimness of my kitchen on a late Sunday afternoon than the emptiness of a mayonnaise jar. She started to say something, but I reached over the stove and tossed it in the garbage can. We looked at each other again- there was no need for words. She nodded once. I picked up a couple of slices of bread. She knew. How could she not? I stretch out on the futon and cradle my stomach in my frigid hands. I take comfort in the fact that the most severe hunger pangs will only last about half an hour. Tops. After that, I can block out the famishment until the next bout of hunger assaults all my senses. It’s the small everyday challenges that threaten to defeat me in ways that the large hurdles in my life have been unable to. I couldn’t stop thinking about the jar of mayo. An empty jar of mayonnaise might not seem like the end of the world. I mean, who needs all that saturated fat, right? But it’s more than just an empty jar. The jar is everything. It’s the overall void that consumes me bit by bit as the days turn into weeks and months, and I still don’t have a job. My entire well-being depends on my ability to sustain myself through any means possible, not to mention my son’s. I guess if I have to be completely honest with myself and not just mildly truthful about the seriousness of my current situation then that’s what ultimately hurts the most: not being able to support my son. It’s what stabs at the pathetic excuse of an ego I thought I had lost use for a long time ago. It turns out an ego is always the last thing to go when you’re cleaning out the SELF closet. You’re only reminded it’s still hanging around when life pulls out the rug from under your slippery feet and you land, not on your hands and knees, but on your face. So that you don’t know which to process first: the shock or the pain, and I guess it hardly matters because if by some miracle you didn’t break anything or several things like your nose and teeth at the same time, you’ll still have to deal with the blood and vertigo that will keep you prone on the ground. As my mother stood next to me in my dark kitchen with exposed pipes and the characteristic dank smell that comes with living in an archaic basement, I was transported back to the wearisome days when I was a child with a struggling single mother. There was a particular rough period in my childhood when we didn’t have much to eat and the refrigerator was as empty as the look on my father’s face when he said he wasn’t going to help me anymore. I was 8 years old and David was 9. We were too young to care for our baby sister Jessie who was only 2 and she had to spend most evenings with my aunt and uncle. My mom worked the second shift at the plastic factory out in Elk Grove Village, which meant David and I were going to be left alone to fend for ourselves whether we were ready or not. In the beginning, it wasn’t too bad. We figured out how to look after ourselves in the wake of my mother’s forced absence and learned to keep quiet about not having enough to eat at home. Some kid who lived in a nearby apartment complex told us a story about another kid who lived on the third floor and how he was almost taken away from his parents for not eating at home. He went to school with us but we weren’t in the same classroom and he was almost as skinny as David. No, we didn’t say anything at all. How could we? We learned not to complain about feeling hungry, not even to each other. We ate our sad school lunches with such gusto, the other kids sitting with us in the cafeteria would make fun of us. “Ewww…seafood!” “Stop chewing with your mouth open!” “God, you eat like you've never eaten before!” No, we couldn’t mask our starvation but we would never say one word to confirm its presence. I get up a little too quickly from the futon and find myself fighting off a wave of darkness in order to regain my balance. By now I’m sure Vic has finished eating his breakfast and must be going over his reading and vocabulary lessons. I shake my head vigorously and shuffle over to the bedroom as my vision slowly starts to clear up. I’m supposed to go apply at a restaurant in the loop, and I have just enough money for the fare to and back, which is why I hope Toni remembered to leave some money with Vic. The soft morning sunlight filters in through the half-open shades, encasing one half of my room in gossamer wisps of warmth and pale luminosity. Through the fragile network, I see some people with bags on their backs or in their hands hurrying along to the train station. It’s the small everyday challenges that don’t leave me alone- they have me in their tight grip.