The dish you've never once ordered

Every diner menu has it. Bottom of page four. Liver and onions. Most of us skip it for life and feel zero pride about it. A cigarette comes around and it's a whole routine. You pick up the idea, turn it over, weigh it against the night, set it down. Four moves, every time.

You've been calling that winning, and it is. But a win you have to repeat every night is a subscription, and you're the one paying. The liver costs you nothing. It isn't in play, so there's nothing to decline. Skipping is exhausting. Absence is free.

How does a dish leave the menu? Not by force. Every argument, even one you win, prints it again for tomorrow. Arguing is how a mind marks something as still live. The cigarette held its spot on the page by keeping you in the debate. Let the debate lapse and the ink starts to fade. God does patient work like that, one evening at a time. Leave it unargued and it goes out of print.

Catch the exact words in your head when it comes around. “I can't have one” means you're still holding the menu. “I don't” means the page has turned. Pick the second, then get back to whatever's on your plate. The goal was never a stronger no. It was to stop being asked.