The Divorce Diet. Ellen Hawley

answer, but she’s sneaky and may be skulking around silently, so I explain as simply as I’m able that sautéing is something you can only do in fat—not water, not broth, not toothpaste. If you sauté something in broth, you’re not sautéing it: You’re boiling it, you’re poaching it, you’re simmering it, or you’re drowning it, but you are not sautéing it.

      She’s not interested. I’m overweight and she weighs 000.0, so she knows more than I do. Besides, she wrote a book. What have I done to match that?

      Never mind. I’ve looked at the book, so my diet-related responsibilities are over for the day.

      I check for food-related jobs online, but they’re replicas of what I found in the paper, so I type up a cover letter for the office jobs I circled:

      “I have seen offices on television all my life and have a powerful desire to work in one. I have been physically present in several offices and frequently handle paper without supervision.”

      I delete the document.

      “I have no qualifications whatsoever for this job, but I need the money.”

      I flush the document.

      “My estranged husband works in an office and looks very nice in a white shirt.”

      I insert a stick of virtual dynamite and blow the document to pixels.