(Sherbrooke, Quebec): Local resident Bill Billson received more than he bargained for recently, after what should have been a mundane moment in the kitchen transformed into a surprisingly emotional experience for him.
“So, there I was,” said Mr. Billson. “It was Saturday morning, and I was chopping some veggies to make an omelets. Usually, I just toss in some cheese, or pork, or whatever the hell’s lying around in the fridge, but for some reason I pulled an onion out of the pantry and found myself getting ready to prepare it with a kitchen knife. Now, this should have been the first warning sign, since I hate the taste of them, but I proceed to start chopping it anyway.”
According to family present, that’s when things took an unexpected turn.
“Bill is normally such a calm, controlled man,” said his wife, Bethany Billson, “he’s not the kind of person that shows emotions, much less reacts to anything. It’s not that he’s worried that being emotional is girly or weak or anything like that, but he’s always been more of a man’s man. The kind of guy who knows how to fix a chainsaw and can easily shotgun a dozen beers in a row as a party trick when visiting with the in-laws.”
“I wasn’t expecting the tears,” said Billson, explaining what happened shortly after making the first incision into the root vegetable. “There were so many of them, streaming down my face, getting into my nose and mouth, and the worst part is that the more I chopped, the more they came.”
A local psychiatric specialist, Dr. Paul Pauligan explained that out of all the common ingredients we might find in our kitchens, onions, for reasons that are largely unknown, have the highest likelihood of triggering surprisingly emotion moments.
“We think it has something to do with the texture,” explained Dr. Pauligan. “Their many layers that you just have to keep peeling away at to get to the truth. No one knows really what’s inside an onion until you’ve gone through the entire thing. In many ways, these humble vegetables resemble our own layers and often shattered psyches. In the act of destroying the onion, we too are often destroying the self.”
Once a sceptic, but now a firm believer in psychoanalysis, Mr. Billson believes this simple act of preparing breakfast allowed him to come to terms with his own upbringing.
“I think it has something to do with my repressed childhood traumas. I carry a lot of them, and it took a long time for me to realize they were there and become comfortable with them,” said Mr. Billson. “You see, when I was growing up, my parents were relatively well-known circus performers thanks to their sophisticated many clowns in a small car routine. They loved the crowds, and the crowds loved them, but they didn’t love me in return. There just wasn’t enough space for me in that tiny little clown car, per se.”
Billson’s wife concurs that chopping the onion was what finally allowed her husband to get in touch with that poor, repressed inner child he was still carrying around inside after all these years.
“My husband spent years, and I mean YEARS, avoiding anything circus related,” explained Mrs. Billson, “It could never quite explain it. That included county fairs, farmer’s markets, and even some of the larger playgrounds in the area. Sometimes around Halloween we’d even be walking by a costume supplier and he would have these weird moments where he’d start to sweat, swear at the sky, and would occasionally throw small park benches through their windows. It was probably the third time when it happened that I started to suspect he might have some issues he was repressing.”
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