By Sam Jarvis

It’s weird being one of the hottest foods of 2015. It’s been a real transition for us over the past few years. Everybody talks about the “guacamole days” and how depressing they were, but slowly we’ve made an epic return (thanks Obama!). My friend Dave was put on a turkey burger. Eleanor was laid over an omelette. Those would both be good ways to go, I suppose. We’ve lost good men sitting on kitchen counters for a day too long, the brilliant green of their insides turning brown and gray. To be mushy and thrown away is every avocado’s nightmare. Even thinking about it gives me a pit in my stomach, although it’s probably just the actual pit in my stomach.

Going out with glory is important to me. To all of us. That’s why the second you get put in a grocery store you need to pray for a good home. A 20-year-old, new to living on their own, could come and scoop you up and the next thing you know you’re in the garbage can. Young people don’t have the patience or knowledge to appropriately deal with ripening. They get distracted and by the time they remember they even have an avocado, it’s too late.

I want more for my short life, you know? It’s easy to be complacent and end up in a cobb salad. Which is fine, it’s just not for me. I want to be special. Go out with a bang! So every night as I drift to sleep, snuggling with the rest of the gang in produce, the hum of the freezer section droning on, I picture it. The best way to go.

I can see her now. A woman, 30 or 35, in a t-shirt and jeans (yoga pants would be fine also), picks me up. As she squeezes me gently I hold my breath. She is the perfect person to appreciate what I am and more importantly who I am. I make it into her basket, meeting new friends Greek yogurt and flax seed bread. I’m liking this crowd already. We don’t get into a car, we walk home. It’s been so long since I’ve felt the breeze on the face I don’t have.

Her kitchen is lovely. Simple, but homey. She is in the prime of her life and career, having yet to settle into children and everything that comes with them. She’s independent. Alive. I spend a day in a large bowl on the counter and I have to say, it’s really nice. Calm.

The next morning I watch her make coffee, effortless in her work blouse. She puts a piece of the flax seed bread into the toaster and I am moments away from everything I’ve always wanted. Please be for me, I think to myself. The toaster dings and she takes me into her arms. I am so happy I could die. I am dying, really. As she slices me, adds pepper and a hint of sriracha salt, I have somehow made it to the nirvana of my kind, the highest honor bestowed on an individual Haas. I have become avocado toast.

When I open my eyes I’m still in Trader Joe’s, sad to be ripped away from my dreams once more. But then, there she is. The woman I’ve always pictured, sipping on a green juice. She walks over, feels some of us. This is it. Hold your breath.

Read more of my short stories here.