Cale Shapera

Diction

Making chicken tonight, I went to grab another frying pan (with my favourite one sitting in the sink—wet and covered in eggs). But just as I reached for the pan, a voice in my head interjected:

You bitch.

I retracted my arm and paused for a second. Then I turned on the tap; soaped, scrubbed, rinsed and dried that pan, and then I cooked some chicken on it.

I'd involuntarily called myself a bitch, knowing that I was doing exactly what (my working definition of what) a bitch would do in that context.

I've mostly stopped saying the word bitch in public but it's definitely not absent from my mind. And it's got power, too; I just cleaned my whole kitchen.