The Happy Enchilada*

Doubt and shame. Tonight, I needed more peace

than is possible in a small apartment. With love

all around, my stress and tension only

showed me the noise and clutter.


Thirty-six years old and earning

not much more than I did as a

sixteen year old part-time pizza

deliverer. I get the joke. Not funny.


Tonight, I am short-tempered and

I'm not a good dad. I'm not bad, just

not good. I settle into hot solitude. In

the bath. I escape and soak and ruminate.


After several minutes of studying the

contours of my propped up feet, I smile

and remember the John Prine song. "That's

The Way That The World Goes 'Round."


A verse: I was sitting in the bathtub counting my toes,

when the radiator broke, water all froze.

I got stuck in the ice without my clothes,

naked as the eyes of a clown.

I was crying ice cubes hoping I'd croak,

when the sun come through the window, the ice all broke.

I stood up and laughed thought it was a joke

That's the way that the world goes 'round.


And I suppose I'll make it.


*John Prine once told the story of a woman who kept requesting a song called The Happy Enchilada at a concert. Puzzled, he told her that he had never written a song about a happy enchilada. She argued with him that indeed he had.

To prove her point, she recited a line from the song. She said, you know, "it's a happy enchilada and you think you're gonna drown." Laughing, John Prine told her that it was the song that I referenced above, "That's The Way That The World Goes 'Round."

The line in question was: It's half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown. / That's the way that the world goes 'round.