Apoka

In the mist of baking, Apoka felt a twinge of regret. Chocolate cupcakes, while popular, were a completely safe option to take.

"Why am I baking so safe?" entered her mind and rattled around her brain as she put down the cup of coco powder.

Apoka stood in her apartment kitchen with an efficient layout and bland colors. All the accent colors where items were given in a haphazard way. Family, friends, and college roommates had all bequeathed the items they most wanted to replace. She had accepted out of poverty, practicality, politeness, and a lack of thought as to her kitchen. Before committing to a kitchen style, she had received excess items from others and had no need to ponder her own style as the essential basics of a kitchen freely came. Yellow cups, plates with country edges, modern red mixing bowls...all nice items, all necessary items for a kitchen, but none managed to match or were what she would have picked out.

With the basics of her kitchen covered and barely in her first "real" job, Apoka tried not to let the decor bother her. She never thought about them bothering her enough to toss perfectly good items in favor of matching and pleasing items purchased cheaply from a large box store. Her needs were filled and she repressed the self-expression desires as being frivolous.

But it did bother her, enough to annoy subconsciously but not to consciously dispose of usable items to replace at a higher expense just to have them please her for their newness and matching style.

So while not able to consciously recognize that the used measuring cups given to her by an aunt, who happily replaced them, was the source of her irritation, she put away the coco.

In the fridge, she took out the lemon juice and went off recipe, beating with old wooden spoons left by a roommate.