A man cuts in front of us at the checkout lane. I think Janet knows him because she's tugging at my shirt, and I can see something behind her eyes, something like a deep, abysmal rage. It is so deep that I know it must be due to more than the fact that this man has over fifty items in the express lane, items that he's trying to use a myriad of expired coupons to pay for. Or, more than the fact that he's refusing to leave the line until the clerk calls the manager so he can honor all the expired coupons or the fact that he has every single package of Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts in the store stacked up in his cart.
       I don't mind eating plain old waffles. Janet does.
        The man looks back at me, and all the sudden, he's giving me a whole bunch of shade. And, it dawns on me. Janet and this man don't just know each other; they have history. I look down at the single box of frozen waffles in our cart, the one's we settled on when we learned there were no Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts, and then I look over to Janet and put my hands palm-up and parallel to my shoulders in a "What's going on?" gesture.
       "He's mad," Janet tells me, "because we're not together anymore," Then Janet turns her head toward him and shouts to make sure he can hear, "AND BECAUSE JACOB HANDLES REJECTION LIKE A CHILD!!!"
        Jacob's face twists with rage. "I was in love with you!" he screams back.
       The clerk behind the register looks on in a tired, exasperated way.
       The manager ignores everything and, having input all of the expired coupons manually, says, "That'll be two-hundred and fifty-six dollars and forty-five cents. Please insert your card."
       "You're buying all the Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts because you know I like them," Janet says to Jacob. "You're bitter, which, bee tee dubs, is super unattractive!"
       Jacob scrunches his eyebrows and puts his hands up to his temples. I can feel something in the air like it's the dead of winter, and every movement creates its own static field.
       "You lied to me," Jacob says. "You told me that we would always be together."
       "Hey, man," says Janet. "I guess I learned that not every High Priest of Panodin, the Great Horned Goat God, is worth my time!"
       "I was in love with you!" Jacob says, and his head begins sparkling, like a backyard on the Fourth of July.
       "Grow up!" Janet says.
       "Panodin the Great Horned Goat God?" I ask.
       "I've heard of him," says the manager.
       "Me too," says the clerk.
       Of course, they have. Who hasn't?
       A ball of flame forms in front of Jacob's forehead. Then he points his hands outward, and the fire pillars forth in an apocalyptic inferno of rejection fueled annihilation.
        Janet doesn't move, and I hit the floor as the pillar of flame misses us both and instead completely incinerates a shelf full of Magic the Gathering and Pokémon cards.
       I look over to the smoldering wreckage as embers of collectible trading cards rain down like volcanic ash.
       "So," I say, lying on the ground, confused, "this dude, is like, one of your ex-boyfriends?"
       Janet bends down and puts her hand on my face, caressing my cheek, ear, and chin. "Oh, honey," she says, smiling warmly, "that's really none of your business, is it?"
       I frown. "Oh," I say. Janet's sort of right. Our open relationship is judgment-free. "I'm not mad," I say. "It's just you never mentioned him."
       Janet then stands and waves her hands in a circle around the air in front of her. "Fuck you, Jacob! You ever think maybe we'd still be together if you weren't such a piece of shit?"
       "And," I say to Janet, "you also said that open relationships require open lines of communication."
       Janet stops her hands, so they're parallel out in front of her body, and a massive bolt of iridescent blue energy blasts forth from between them, decimating everything in its path.
       Jacob jumps sideways toward the clerk and takes him to the ground so that neither of them ends up getting disassembled to their base elements like the register does, and the conveyor belt, and the shelve of candy bars, the plastic grocery bags, the shopping carts, and the t-shirts with "GOOOOOO PANTHERS!!" printed on them.
       I watch all these things turn to dust and fall to the floor.
       "You never even mentioned me?!" Jacob asks, incredulous.
       Both Janet and Jacob have changed. Their pupils are shaped like hourglasses, they're glowing blue, and each has two large horns the size of a professional basketball player's arms curving out from their foreheads.
       I don't like this at all and badly wish I knew what was going on, and Janet must see the pleading in my eyes.
       "Judgment free," she gently reminds me, playfully wagging her finger at me. Then she turns to Jacob, slowly and deliberately saying, "And I never mentioned Jacob because I don't think about him anymore."
       "What?!" Jacob yells and throws another fireball that misses wide left and grazes the popcorn aisle. The air is filled with a million random pops and a smell that must be the smell of a movie theater burning to the ground.
       Janet releases a stream of blue energy that obliterates the entire storefront.
       I'm not sure what's going on, but I realize the structural integrity of this grocery store is quickly becoming a metaphor for our relationship.
       The two of them fly off the ground, and after another melee, the roof is disintegrated, and the two take to the sky, blasting energy at each other until they disappear into the clouds.
       I stand in the ruins near the register for a long time until the clerk comes up to me. He has a look of sincere sympathy in his eyes, but still, he says, "I'm sorry. You're going to have to leave. We're closing the store early."
       I look down at the box of frozen waffles and know I'll probably never enjoy them again. What good are waffles without someone to share them with?