‘Waste not, want not,’ Dad said, throwing my poor, dead goldfish Lionel into the frying pan.
I’d protested this as best as a seven-year-old could. I was already in tears from finding Lionel belly-up in his tank and now Dad was frying him for supper. But he made two reasonable points that shut me up: one, he could get a meal out of Lionel if he cooked him with fries and two, if I didn’t stop bloody crying right bloody now, he’d give me a slap. Dad salt-and-vinegared the corpse of my best friend and swallowed him in one greedy bite.
That day never left me. Though I resented Dad for years afterwards, leaving him to wither away in a run-down care home without a second thought, his lesson had drilled itself into my brain.
‘Don’t throw out that old loaf,’ I’d say. ‘We can use that for bread pudding. Waste not, want not.
Or: ‘There’s nothing wrong with that milk, just strain the lumps out. Waste not, want not.’
And even: ‘Use the old bath water. Yes, I just washed the dog. Waste not, want not.’
Such wisdom wasn’t often well-received by my wife, Heather, and daughter, Millie, but beneath their tangible contempt I thought they understood, even appreciated, my actions.
But then the dog carked it. ‘That’s the problem with pets,’ I said to Millie as she wailed. ‘Sometimes they just die out of the blue.’ I got out of the car, picked up the corpse of Billy the beagle from beneath the tyres, and laid it on the lawn.
‘Should we bury him, Daddy?’ sobbed Millie. I considered the options.
When Heather came home later, she screamed bloody murder at the sight of the dead, skinned canine next to the outside bin and didn’t even stop when I pointed out the new dog hair rug in the hallway. ‘It’s not like I’ve cooked and eaten the damn mutt,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m not my father!’ It made no difference. I was accused of traumatising Millie just as he’d traumatised me. I protested this too, although, actually, Millie did look a bit pale and was trembling like blancmange in a hurricane.
And that was the end of my marriage. Now I live in a fetid bedsit. Cockroaches march over me as I shiver on the hard futon. I’m starving. I’ve no food, nor money. The deposit on this dump took everything I had. My belly growls.
Then I think, they eat cockroaches in foreign countries, don’t they? And in that show with the not really famous people in the jungle? I grab one. It’s this or nothing. Waste not, want not. I force it between my lips. It wriggles and tickles and makes me gag. I wish I had eaten the dog now. There’s no way it would have been worse than this.
‘Waste not, want not’? Bloody daft advice. There was an awful lot I wanted now – to go back to the way things were, for instance, and not be such a stupid twat.
A spindly leg juts out from between my teeth. I pull it out, lie down, and try to sleep.
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David Cook’s stories have been published in Ellipsis Zine, Spelk, the Sunlight Press and more. He lives in Bridgend, Wales, UK, with his wife and daughter. Say hi on Twitter @davidcook100.
