Page 424 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

“I threw the box away.

“Because it’s a box.”

My hand falls to my side.

“Why would the only warning be on the thing people throw away?”

“I understand your frustration, but unfortunately we don’t replace items damaged due to improper use.”

“Improper use,” I repeat, biting my lip, nodding, then look down at the container, turning it in my hand. “Denise. I have a lid and the bottom. They came together. Now one is broken and the other is sitting here wide open, useless, vulnerable. Does FreshSeal even care?”

“It’s the reason we provide proper care instructions.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna need to speak to a manager.”

I’m on hold for another fifteen minutes,

and when Denise returns,

she introduces Mark, her supervisor.

“Hi. Mark, is it? Look—it’s Christmas Eve, so let’s cut to the chase so you can go home and spend it with your family. I need a lid.”

“I understand, but we don’t replace lids damaged by dishwasher use. You could purchase a new set,” he suggests.

I scoff. “A new set? That solves jack shit. I’ll still have one bottom and one lid wandering around. Two halves of a whole that don’t fit anymore.”

“Ma’am, I don’t know what to tell you.”

I close my eyes. “What’s it made of? I’ll fix it my damn self.”

“It’s BPA-free plastic.”

“That means nothing.

“Cyanide can be gluten-free.”

“It’s polypropylene,” he tries again.

“Please hold,” I say, swiping my phone off the counter and pulling up a web browser. Type polypropylene into Google… and as my eyes scan the screen, they widen more with every word. “Hold up—you’re tellin’ me this is made from the same barrel of oil as gasoline?”

Gasoline goes in cars. Cars explode.

Why am I eating out of bombs?

“How many people have died of this plastic, Craig?”

“Mark,” he corrects, when Brooke comes through the second speaker⁠—

AI Brooke: “One 2018 global estimate attributed roughly 356,000 cardiovascular deaths to DEHP exposure, mostly linked to plastics.”

I gasp,

the container falling from my fingers

and crashing to the floor

with a thud-thud-thudedededed