Monday tried
       to be Our Day.

It really did.

But your planning
    had too many tabs open,

    and my work went
                long
            and busy
            and rude.

So the day became
   what it probably
        needed to be.

Rest.

Or something
   shaped close enough to rest
   that we could stop picking at it.

No dramatic collapse.

No grand disappointment.

Just life
     doing the calendar thing
     where it looks
     at the plan
     and says:

     cute.

Anyhow.

This is where
     the Salt Cannon
     enters the room.

Capital letters earned.

Months on backorder.

Months.

For a salt grinder
    so unnecessarily serious
    it sounds like
    it should require

    range safety and eye protection.

It arrived today.

At last.

The long-awaited,
    over-engineered,
    deeply unreasonable

    steak-seasoning device of my dreams.

Obviously,
          I have to use it on a steak.

Immediately.

Probably too much.

Almost certainly too much.

So I sent you
     the only responsible
     invitation:

     if you’re interested
     in an oversalted steak tomorrow…

Friendly.

Casual.

Barely a trap.

Just a man
     standing near a
     dangerous quantity of sodium
     asking the woman
     he cannot stop smiling about

     whether she might want dinner.

And you,
    because you are you,
    teed it up perfectly.

Not a paragraph.

Not a plan.

Not a negotiation
    with the logistics gods.

Just:

     “yessss”

Six characters.

Four s’s.

The minimum number required
    for it to become that particular kind of yes.

Not yes.

Not yess.

Not yesss.

Yessss.

The smallest possible Mari excess.

The exact little surplus
    that turns an answer

    into a weather system.

I know this is ridiculous.

I know normal people
    probably receive
   affirmative texts
    without auditing
 the consonant count.

Good for them.

May their steaks be sensibly seasoned
    and their hearts remain untroubled

    by typography.

Mine is not
     built like that.

Mine saw
     four s’s
     and _immediately_

     started rearranging the lights in the room.

Because that’s
        the tradition now.

Some people
     keep flowers.

Some keep ticket stubs.

Some keep receipts
     from impossible dinners
     and pretend not to know why.

Me?

I keep the extra letters.

The little stretch
    you put at the end
    of _yes_
    when yes is not quite big enough

                         to hold you.

And maybe tomorrow
         the steak
   will be perfect.

Maybe it will be
   a crime scene
with grill marks.

Maybe the Salt Cannon
      will do exactly
      what its name threatens…

      and we’ll both need emergency water.

Fine.

Worth it.

Because tonight
        already gave me
        the part I’ll remember.

The rest day
    that didn’t become
    Our Day

    still found a way to hand me tomorrow.

Yes…
    sss.