“I want to speak to a manager,” the middle-aged woman said in her stern I-used-to-be-a-soccer-mom-ten-years-ago voice, looking down at me over the top of her Gucci reading glasses.
A wicked grin split across my face and the gates of Hell opened up behind me, releasing a gust of hot wind that whipped my apron around my body and forced the woman to shield her face. Demons came forth, dancing around in flames with songs of, “She wants to speak to a manager. Did you hear that? She wants to speak to a manager!” before erupting into earsplitting shrieks of laughter, none louder than my own cackling.
I took in the woman’s look of utter horror before my eyes rolled back into my head and I growled,
Dear employers, I will have to take the day off today because:
☐ It’s December and the streets are papier-mached with wet bronze leaves and it’s so dark outside that the cars have their headlights on at 3pm
☐ I have recently been through a breakup, or I have been through a breakup at any time in my life really, and I woke up today with the absolute conviction that I will never be loved again
☐ A dog looked at me
☐ I got a text from someone for whom I feel a mix of concern and frustration and recognition and longing that is both more and less than romance
☐ Someone made a joke about dead pets meeting you in heaven
☐ Daylight savings time
☐ I passed a knot of flowers that were so bright they glowed through the dim grey water of the day and when was anything in my life last that luminous?
☐ Girls are too pretty
☐ For the first time I genuinely comprehend that there is not enough time to have all the lives I wanted
