Every night before I get into the shower, I pluck a little ball of black lint out
of my belly button. This is a profund and routine act.
What do you do with the lint?
I flick it into the trash can, or, if I'm lazy, I let it drop into the sink.
Why is putting it in the sink the lazier option?
The trash can has a pedal-operated lid and is low to the ground. Operating it
requires movement of the legs and also some bending of the wrist to more accurately
flick the lint where it belongs.
Are you worried about clogging the sink drain?
Not at all. It's really a very, very small amount of lint.
Then why not always flick it into the sink?
I'm worried about clogging the drain.
What are you even talking about?
Belly button lint, the burden that must be borne by god's chosen people, innies.
The slow unravelling of my t-shirts, one teeny tiny fiber at a time, just as
the world and time itself unravel too, the loose fibers of civilization daily collecting
in the belly button of Creation, death, which comes for us all.
Because my t-shirts are black.
Yes. I suffer from hyperhidrosis. Black hides the pit stains.
Does the belly button's rich symbolism--as the last vestige of the life-giving
connection to your mother, the cord which your father so cruelly cut and audaciously
tied, giving you unasked-for independence--does this symbolism ever bring you to your
knees, crying out in analytical agony on the bathroom floor as thread by thread your life
unwinds itself into your cold, sweaty hands?
No, that would be silly, wouldn't it?