It took me nine months to discover a salad in the skyways worth purchasing. Avocado, smoked salmon, chopped egg, tomatoes, the works. All dressed up and boxed just for me. Riding the elevator back to the fifth floor with my salad in hand, I was joined by a jovial, avuncular, slightly too friendly gentleman.
“That’s too healthy!” He spat it out like an accusation of baby murdering.
“Oh,” I fumbled around for words. I don’t do well in these situations, as we’ve seen, dear readers. “Well, it has avocado on it so…” Bam, how do you like that small talk/chit chat/I’m just so easy, breezy, beautiful, CoverGirl?
“That’s healthy!” Smack. The accusation hits again. “Did you not know that avocado is healthy?” His tone had turned from anger to concern.
The ride was nearly over. We were left alone in the carpeted elevator.
“I don’t really know why I said that,” I am forced to confess. “I was sort of caught off guard.”
Ding. The doors part. I walk off into the office lighting sunset glare, my ponytail swishing in the breeze that is my life.
I’m picturing Bill Murray in his genius Lost in Translation days slouching into apathy as he tries once again to convincingly sell Suntory whisky to Japanese patrons.
Only now he is selling Vigara. What’s Vigara, you ask?
I don’t know, but I can get you a major discount. Message me.
Ever since ever when kids were encouraged to buy pieces of paper with expressions of affection and approval and pass them out to particular kids at their schools, we’ve been dealing with this society-ordained cycle of public displays of love and private displays of jealousy. Some of us better than others.
I, for example, don’t handle it well even when I think I handle it well.
Case in point, Linden received not one but two beautiful bouquets for her birthday on Wednesday. Roses and tulips and daisies and all the colors of the rainbow were all over her desk (which is also kind of my desk).
Something so beautiful has never been anywhere near my chair and so when office passersby noticed them, they instantly stopped to exclaim, “What nice flowers! What are they for?”
One editor asked this while Linden was away. I jumped in ready to be supportive and happy and share her good news. But then it sort of went like this instead:
“They’re for her birthday. Yeah, we thought for awhile that they were from her boyfriend but then it turned out they were from her parents!”
In my mind this read as a lame, “men, right?” kind of joke, but in everybody else’s mind, it was more of a “she thinks she’s all special but who doesn’t have parents, right?”
The editor politely offered birthday wishes and backed away from the bitter vitriol spilling from my mouth.
And I don’t even feel bitter! I don’t! I bought her a donut first thing in the morning to mark her happy day! And yet….vitriol cometh.
“As we draw closer to producing monthly thought leadership web content…”
OMG, that’s what I was supposed to be doing? And wait, what exactly was I supposed to be doing? Thought leadership web content? Oh, cool, that was totally my concentration in JSchool.
