12. This Morning I ran into Jennie, a ginger-haired young woman who works at the same company I do (should it remain nameless? have I already let its name slip?), this morning while parking our bikes. She sports a bright pink helmet, one of those not meant for cyclists but for skateboarders. It serves its purpose just the same, I bet, and helps her out by making her flashy (and, for those safety-conscious readers out there, quite visible) on the street. We headed into the hall to wait for the elevators to suck us out of level P1 when we spotted what at first looked like a cockroach on the brown tiled floor. She nudged it with her sandal. She asked me, “Is that what I think it is?” I responded, “Looks like a cross between a multivitamin and a button from my ankle-length mauve winter coat from the mid-'80s.” She then told me about a woman in her department who died two days before while eating out. Some sort of violent food allergy. Here's her story (I’m not mentioning this to b...
Popular posts from this blog
Confessions of a Retired Pet Sitter I don’t think I’ve mentioned any of this yet but until last year, I had basically 2.5 paid jobs. One, the main one, is at National Geographic. The second one at which I thanklessly toiled (a little dramatic? perhaps) for three years, was pet sitting. I worked for an agency that takes care of animals (mostly cats but also dogs, fish, exotic birds, your random, demanding hermit crab, etc.) in people’s homes while they’re out of town. I started working for the agency that shall remain nameless due to legal concerns (the privacy of our clients but of course) while in graduate school. I had initially hired the agency to take care of my own two cats, Begbie and Andy. I had found out about the agency just by looking for such a service online; through the Washington City Paper ’s classifieds. I was impressed when one of the pet sitters, a woman I will mysteriously call “Sally,” came by our apartment one evening to get...
Comments