MONKEY Vol 5: Creatures

Here is a preview from MONKEY New Writing from Japan, volume 5. Our theme this year is Creatures.

This Precious Opportunity
Aoko Matsuda
translated by Polly Barton

I’d like to take this precious opportunity to explain why I stopped licking the lids of my yogurt containers.
For many years, licking the lid was a secret indulgence of mine. I knew it was bad form, but if there was so much as a sliver of yogurt stuck to the foil it seemed a waste not to, and I’d be restless until I’d gone and done it. It was a guilty pleasure, through and through.
Every morning before work, I would eat a small container of yogurt together with a slice of toast. I wasn’t too fussy about the brand. In the supermarket, I would sling a few of those four-cup packs that crowded the shelves—plain, assorted fruit, aloe vera—into my shopping basket rather indiscriminately, which I would then arrange on the shelves of my 118-liter fridge.
After opening the yogurt at the breakfast table, I’d lick the lid. Then I’d dip my spoon into the plastic container, move it to my mouth, and savor. Those little yogurt cups didn’t contain much, and on occasion I’d find myself wanting a second.
When I was finished, I’d throw on my jacket, and the day would begin.
The end to these halcyon days of mine came quite recently.
One day, as I licked the lid of my yogurt as usual, a message appeared:

Have a great day!

It seemed as though this particular yogurt manufacturer had decided to start printing messages on the undersides of their lids. It was plausible that they’d made that decision without ever entertaining the possibility that yogurt would cling there, but the effect was nonetheless that the words would be obscured by yogurt, becoming a secret message legible only to those who licked the lid. I always licked it with a guilty feeling, as though I were transgressing in some small way, and yet the message that had materialized was so utterly cheery that I couldn’t help but feel sort of embarrassed.
Yet I forgot about all that in an instant, tossing my empty yogurt container in the bin.
The following day, the previous day’s message wiped clear from my memory, I peeled the top off my yogurt to find another buoyant message greeting me:

Counting on you!

And who the hell are you, I thought to myself. Once again, the message left me with a feeling of discomfort, and I averted my eyes as I tossed the yogurt container in the bin. It ruined my whole morning.
The next day the message read:

Some days things just don’t turn out your way, but never give up!

Yeah, I’d known a few teachers and classmates who came out with this sort of superficial positive-thinking crap, I brooded irritably as I made my way to the bus stop, turning over incidents in my past that I had no wish to recall.
For the following few days, I ate the yogurts made by other brands which I’d bought at the same time, and licked their lids to my heart’s content. Nothing was written there. My pure, simple relationship with the lids remained uninterrupted, and my mood unspoiled.
Then came the fateful day. I woke up slightly later than usual and was in a rush, so when I grabbed a yogurt cup from the fridge I did so somewhat at random. From the underside of its lid emerged the line:

Did you lick it?

I was so furious I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was as if that clandestine joy that I’d taken in licking the lid, which I’d believed had been uniquely mine, had been stomped into the dirt by someone. The feeling was that of being well and truly ridiculed.
Which is why I stopped licking the lids of my yogurt cups. I’ve been ridiculed enough in this life of mine, and I’m done with it. Now I exclusively buy Bulgaria-brand yogurt. Their foil is such that the yogurt doesn’t stick to them at all, meaning I don’t even have to manage the temptation to lick them. It’s wonderful.