My Cinnabon Essay Contest Essay

Mydogischelsea tagged me to write this. While I highly doubt my fuzzy Cinnabon memory is what the marketers are looking for, winner of the contest gets free Cinnabons for an entire year (oh boy–just what I always wanted: Diabetes!!!). So, submitted for Cinnabon’s approval (but more importantly because nothing good is on TV tonight…) is my Cinnabon Essay Contest Essay, describing my most memorable Cinnabon experience ever:

In a suburb far, far away lays a mystical place where capitalism runs rampant, consumer goods tempt even the brokest of hoes, and where cinnamon rolls waft their warm, diabetic-coma inducing love into the olafactories of passersby all. This holy place goes by one name and one name only:

THE MALL.

From swishy-swooshing track-suit clad seventy-something’s out for their morning walk, to multiply pierced and pimpled teens, THE MALL is friend to none, but loved by all.

Pedaling cute cat calendars, lame lava lamps, overpriced compact disks, junk jewelry, and an endless array of trampy, lycra based clothes suitable for underage bar hopping, THE MALL is frequented most regularly by those desperate to purchase its shitty goods (or desperate to get away from their pathetic homes). These consumers, nearly lobotomized by the Muzak that relentlessly permeates the area and disheartened by the horrendous markups on mediocrity, need refuge from the storm; THE MALL understands this. For these tired, weary, huddled masses yearning to break free there is one oasis: THE FOOD COURT.

The FOOD COURT offers the weak caffeine, the fat lipids, and the thin malnourishment. Where else might one indulge in the grotesque dipping of a nacho chip through the thin layer of skin that forms atop aged nacho cheese to lavish in the lugubrious neon yellow creaminess beneath? Where else might one order a Chalupa appetizer and follow up with a Whopper main course? Where else might one find a hot dog crammed so lovingly on a stick? And most importantly, where my fellow Americans, where else but the FOOD COURT may you find a cinnamon roll so large that roll is not even a word big enough to do it justice? A cinnamon roll so gargantuan it must be called a CINNABON?

THE FOOD COURT, ladies and gentleman, THE FOOD COURT.

My love affair with the FOOD COURT has been a long and torrid one that, like any health and sanitation conscious person, never happened. But there was one moment in time when I thought things could be different, when our caloric worldview might be disregarded for the sake of taste and pleasure.

I was seventeen years old and I worked part time at the Hallmark across the hall from the have-a-picture-of-your-ugly-child-put-on-a-mug-or-sweatshirt booth at THE MALL. I would arrive at the Hallmark late, 6:30 pm or so, after having been at school since dawn and after my extracurricular activities ended. I was tired, and most often, unfed.

One dreary evening, after struggling to find a parking spot amidst the Christmas shoppers, I found a snug spot in THE MALL parking lot closest to the food court entrance. I was greeted by a snarling female(?) in a Cinnabon uniform, her(?) face plastered in what must have been a good quarter inch of makeup.

“Sample?” The face asked, smacking her(?) neon green gum loudly. I looked at her, curious as to how she could keep her eyes open under the significant weight of her Tammy Faye inspired mascara.

Just as I was about to lift my hand to her platter to sample a morsel of her sugary goodness, she turned away from me, distracted by a man-child to the left of us wearing a giant, puffy Hornets jacket and multiple gold chains and shouting the following:

“Ho, snap! Da bitch gots da buns!”
“Shut up, Devonte! You stupid,” the Cinnabon peddler countered.
Davonte grabbed the crotch of his pants, which was all the way down by his shins. (Quite the torso, this guy.)
“What you say, bitch? Suck it!”
“You want me fired?”
“Suck it!”
“You want me fired?”
“SUCK IT!”

At this point the repetition of the dialogue outweighed whatever merits the players creative costuming might have held for me. It definitely outweighed my desire for a Cinnabon sample.

So you see, it was that night that I was denied my entry into the world of THE FOOD COURT. That night I dusted the Precious Moments and stocked the Cherished Teddies on an empty stomach, wondering all the while if that one morsel of sugary goodness might have been enough to make me feel loved and nourished by the protector that most everyone else knows and loves: THE FOOD COURT.
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Cinnabons: For or Against? Discuss!

Death to October
© The Author, 2005

Friday, September thirty was a payday—not a big payday—but a payday and I was feeling the safety and contentment of this little cushion of cash when I crawled back into bed and cuddled up to my cleanly compact and sex-hushed husband. I kissed the thin ridge of his cheekbone, “we had a good September,” I smoldered. He smiled then snored softly to sleep.

In thirty thirsty September days we moved, with the help of only our own sinewy and tired arms; we made house home. In seven hundred and twenty autumn-sun soaked minutes, we let ourselves free fall into the routine of this place we newlywed, daily life reinvigorated and special. We were charmed by floorboard squeaks, dazzled by the mummified beetle squatting grossly near to our front door buzzer, humored by the asbestos bubbling water damage spewing forth from our shower wall, relaxed by the hour long subway commute into work.

“Even the spiders are different here,” I marveled, “they seem much bigger!”

September was the first full month we could enjoy the meager monetary rewards of my miniscule raise and hour-increase at work. In September Shaun started moonlighting as an editor; news of publication of one of his stories was confirmed. September we started new writing classes. September I got new students to tutor for the fall term and I was invited to co-author a chapter of a book. Sorely missed west coast friends visited in September and Shaun’s parents popped by for a weekend. Shaun’s birthday is in September. Days were lazier, longer, flooded with feeling.

Instead of lounging languorously in our plush success on September thirty, it might have been in my best interest to reach over to our bedside bookcase and knock heartily on wood.

During a family dinner when I was six my new step-dad looked over at me and said with disgust, “you look sick!”

I wasn’t physically ill, but when I am over-tired, emotionally exhausted, or jut simply sun-starved I have a tendency to acquire a yellow, scurvy-seeming sheen to my skin, accompanied by two purplish crescents contouring the space where eye socket meets nose. This homely infliction was highlighted by the fact that when I was a girl, my body was alarmingly skeletal and my favorite outfit was my black leggings and turtleneck that emphasized all my urchin-like qualities. In short, I looked like a child you might feel obligated to help for fifty cents a day, so it was completely without malice that my new step-dad assumed that I was ill. However, my young, unaware ears heard my step-dad calling me disgusting and ugly: an unfit, putrid excuse for a daughter. Stung, I threw down my forkful of dry rice-pilaf, burst into tears, raced upstairs to my room, and slammed the door shut to wail in privacy.

I’m reminded of that scene each time I am confronted with a mirror this October. I look sick.

Like every fall, shorter days and plentiful rain showers make jogging a challenge, leaving my body feeling sluggish and slothful; my upper thighs and ass start to remind me of haunches on a big, imposing animal instead of the sleek and toned stalks I usually tread on. My hair is a shaggy, lame mess. To say my skin is stressed is putting it lightly. My clothes are ridiculous, mismatched, un-flattering, wrongly sized clearance rack and resale items, but nothing is new there—my unfortunate fashion choices just seem amplified when the body wearing them looks and feels like utter shite.

Like every time I look sick, I am drained and off-balance this October. The idiosyncrasies that were September’s sweetness are October’s thorn in my side. The hour commute makes me irate. The rotten bathroom wall has begun to leek a moldy stench that I am convinced is the cause of my flaring allergies and the little, jumpy black flies that have infiltrated our home.

However gnarly the apartment stuff sounds, the source of my discontentment is not at home, but with life outside it. The crumbling apartment, like my unfortunate fashion choices, just seems to amplify my unrest.

The chapter I was co-authoring in September turned into an ugly mess of legalities and burnt bridges. My jobs make me feel like gnashing my teeth for unblog-friendly reasons. Shaun’s moonlighting and grad school application process combined with my hairy schedule has left us with Netflicks rentals gathering dust on the entertainment center, a nagging reminder of just how little we are just hanging out together lately. Thoughts of throwing our life, jobs, and finances into upheaval next year for the grad school move are proving less romantic as the reality of them becomes tangible.

I know that my life is spiraling out of control when the exhaustion of the day makes me so nauseous at night that a puke bucket is beside the bed becomes my security blanket. It’s a far cry from the kiss covered nights of September, that’s for sure.

Yesterday evening I breathed a sigh of relief as I tumbled into our apartment after work, letting my heavy shoulder bag crash to the floor and kicking off my tall, brown boots. I scooped up the fluffy cat meowing his greetings at my feet and headed straight for the comfort of my unmade bed. Giles Alejandro Scimitar cuddled up beneath my chin and we napped happily for a timeless time.

I dreamed that October ended. It was a short dream, liquid with an elusive plot, but in it, October ended.

In the dream, I was naked, standing at the refrigerator, staring at my calendar illustrated with classic Pez candy advertisements. My brows were furrowed as I tried to decipher my own scribblings in the date boxes. It was important to me in the dream to do this with some speed, as I was in full view of the neighbors to the west of us who can easily see into our large kitchen window. I grumbled and shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs that had made me suddenly illiterate. Soon, I heard the neighbor’s car pull into their parking spot. My pulse quickened—Oh no! Now they’ll see me! I thought. Then it dawned on me, I was looking at the wrong month—October was over, it was November now. Relief rinsed through me and I threw my head back and laughed out loud. The neighbor family was in the alley below, curious to see who was laughing. I ripped the dreaded month from the calendar.

“October is over!” I exclaimed, rushing to the window holding the ripped page for them to see. The neighbors laughed and congratulated me before turning away to enter their house.

Unlike most good dreams, I was thrilled to realize when I woke that it was true; November is nearly upon us. In celebration I put some funky Samba on the stereo and took a nice hot shower. I pinned my hair up and added a thick, lace headband, ala Clara Bow.

I dressed up in my pirate boots, rolled up jeans, vintage-looking black tank, and black long gloves. I painted myself some china doll lips with lipstick and painted my eyes like a geisha. Shaun came home as I was in the bedroom, dabbing on some sample perfume that I had acquired somewhere. His eyebrows went up in that funny Buster Keaton way he has.

“You look good!”
“We are going out tonight.”
“Yeah?”
“We are celebrating the end of October. It’s almost over, you know.”

He came up behind me and slid his arms around my waist and we gazed at each other in the mirror of the dresser vanity. He kissed my neck before pretending to bite it like a vampire. I slapped him away, laughing and soon we were playful and in good spirits as we headed out for some margaritas, tortilla chips, and a late night concert at the Metro.

As crappy as most of October was, last night we managed to compound all the glory of September into one night, making October not so bad, after all. Still, I am more than ready to be rid of this month.

I am revived and ready, November. Bring it on.

How was your month?

*

Random Tangent

Go see Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang immediately. Robert Downey Junior plays a petty thief turned actor turned private eye and a plump Val Kilmer plays a character called Gay Perry. The characters are fresh, the plot is snappy, and the dialogue made me pee a little it was so damn funny. Just go see it—I promise you will be happy.

Our Way Back Home
© The Author, 2005

The night was cold in that blustery, damp, endless Chicago way. Waiting for the crosswalk to turn at the corner of Michigan and Chicago avenues, I was flagged by my husband on my right and my grandparents on my left. We were on our way to the subway to go home from an evening spent at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Grandma stood prettily—her cheeks perked like little rose buds, her eyes sparkly in the city lights. Grandpa seemed like a bird, chest puffed and eyes inquisitive.

My grandparents have a sleek and dignified British carriage, but the starched and proper ridged-ness is replaced by a happy lightness, a soft tread. Beside them Shaun-san and I looked bulky, clumsy, young and American; a tattered library book spilled and sagged from Shaun’s coat pocket, my giant shoulder bag looked as if it were about to rupture, so full was it was magazines, novels, a sketchbook, a messy journal and leaky pens.

The shocking shiver of autumn bit into and tranquilized my giddiness from our romp at the opening party of the newest exhibition to grace my museum, Tropicalia: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture. Grandpa surveyed the surrounding buildings, the pristine brilliance of the Magnificent Mile.

“When you leave this place, you’re really gonna miss it.”
“I know. Especially if we move to Iowa.”
He chuckles, “That’s right.”
My eyes lingered over the city gallery at the Historic Water Tower.

I remembered the first time I had traveled to Chicago as a high school senior on a field trip with my school choir. My mom chaperoned the trip and while the other girls were ecstatic over the prospect of a three story Gap store, my mom and I couldn’t wait to check out “that little castle place” that was the city gallery. I don’t remember what show was there, but I remember loving that it was a free little castle with art in it. I was thankful that my mom was as excited as I was to venture into this little castle, this sparking gem; it felt good to have her get me. We were the same in our different-ness and nothing has ever been as soothing to me, nothing makes me feel safer.

The rhythm of the city was punctuated by a street drummer pounding on a bucket to the south of us and a saxophone player droned “When the Saints Go Marching Through”—the only song he knows—to the west.

“The cost of living in Iowa should be lower at least,” I offered.
I looked at the taxi’s streaming past, their “vacant” lights welcoming and pretty.
“…But we’ll probably need a car there. I guess that will add up.”

I looked at Shaun for confirmation and made a mental note to stop looking at him for that because it makes me look weak and un-confident and unsure and pathetically female. I looked away.

“…But it will be worth it if that is where we choose to go. The writers program at the University of Iowa is amazing. Shaun says that Vonnegut taught there. Can you imagine?”

The weekend prior, when Shaun and I took the Amtrak to meet my grandparents in Michigan, where they were visiting my mom and brothers on the first stop of their midwestern vacation, I learned that my grandpa hates reading books.

“They always remind me too much of school and school spoiled books,” he told me as we shucked the shells from a pile of warm shrimp for the Peruvian dish my grandma was preparing.

I never knew that my grandpa hated reading.

In my grandparents house there is a tall bookcase in the guest bedroom brimming with musty hard cover books that I have always loved thumbing through. Its weird how easy it is to assume that someone loves something as much as you do.

The light at the crosswalk changed and we moved quickly across the street, the crisp wind fresh off the lake licking at our heels.

“Besides,” I tried to justify, “in a college town there is always something interesting going on. It’s like a little bubble of a universe.”

“Well yeah—you’ll have plenty going on,” my grandma chimed.

I wasn’t convincing anyone.

Over the course of three days my grandparents, my husband and I enjoyed one another’s company while stuffing ourselves at my favorite Thi food restaurant, reveling at a brilliant new exhibition of art and ephemera from Brazil, and delighting in an amazing production authored by one of my all time favorite Japanese fiction writers at the Steppenwolf. The global perspective and the cultural smorgasbord that Chicago pulsates with are not the driving forces of Iowa City, I’m sure.

Besides that, Iowacitygirl24 really doesn’t have the same ring to it.

It’s not like University of Iowa is the only place that Shaun is applying to pursue his master’s degree at. Emerson, Oxford, University of Glasgow, and University of British Columbia in Vancouver are all likely places for us to become indebted to next fall.

But I suggested Iowa.

So many times had the writers program at University of Iowa been endorsed to me, that I am convinced that it’s a great school, one deserving of Shaun’s talents.

And it won’t be forever.

This morning I woke up chilly with our fat cat purring noisily in my ear. I snuggled close to Shaun and I whispered warmly, “I can’t wait to move to Iowa with you.”

And it’s hard to tell if that’s a lie or not.

______________________________________________________________________

With the whole globe to choose from, how did you find your home?

***

Random Tangent
Everyone has at least one iconic image that he or she identifies with. This can be a character, a place, or a symbol—anything that represents your ego.

My icons are the cowgirl, the tribal chief, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Shaun’s is the Shaman.
What are yours?

While I Don’t Want to Start Any Blasphemous Rumors…
© The Author, 2005

I am an actress. What am I doing in Chicago? I should be in New York, especially since I live there and everything! Haven’t you seen me in that one comercial? Well, you should have. I was hot.

On my way home from work yesterday evening, I ran into a chica on the corner of Michigan and Chicago who I apparently went to high school with. She cheerfully stopped me and informed me that we were classmates (“we totally had English class together!!!”). I vaguely remembered her nose—a cute, mushroom shaped dollop sitting perky on her sweet, clean face—but aside from that I can’t say that I have any memory of her at all. This is not to say that she is unmemorable—I’m sure she is quite a catch. This is to say that I was an extraordinarily noticeable high school-er (what else do you call a 6 foot tall girl who wears 5 inch platform shoes and mini skirts to school and befriends every queer guy within a mile radius because no one else will belt out show tunes and torch songs with her quite like they do?), but I had a very limited social life and friends nonetheless. After all, being noticeable in high school does not necessarily make you popular. In my experience, it was exactly the opposite.

Anyhow, the chica who recognized me was a sweetheart. I’m not sure that we had too much in common (a conclusion I came to after noting her brimming Neiman Marcus shopping bag and subsequently listening her drone on about fashion designers as if they were her best friends. Also, there were comments she made about how her parents will financially support her while she does her internships until she is ready to move in with her boyfriend—things that are completely beyond my comprehension), but it was nice to be surprised with a bit of conversation with someone so friendly.

One particularly interesting bit of information that this lovely gal gave me was that in my hometown, it is rumored (mainly among people who I apparently graduated with but have no recollection of) that I am an actress living in New York.

I wish my life were that glamorous (well, not really, seeing as how I got out of theater and into writing because I was fed up with memorizing other people’s words and I got much more of a kick out of having people recite my writing. Plus, the life of a theater actor is really not all that glamorous: the shitty pay, the working nights and weekends, the schmoozing, the day job waiting tables…it’s really not my bag). Instead, I’m just a Chicagoartgirl with a job and some writing projects up her sleeve.

When I set my cute ex-classmate straight about my mythical life, her face fell a bit before doing the socially obligatory, “oh wow—that’s great” bit. It’s funny—the things that other people find impressive about me, real or imagined, are not the things that I dig most at all.

For example, during college I had an internship at a very famous television show that I can’t name explicitly because I singed a legally binging document that specifies that I can’t. But if you know anything about Chicago and the shows that are made here (trust me, you do), you’ll know what show it was. Everyone was (and still is) floored by my internship there. To me, not quitting it the first day was the most sell-out, degrading, and unimpressive thing I have ever done.

People have also been wooed by my acting, even though I’m not a genius actress. My worst scripts are ten times better than my best acting. But scripts never seem as impressive to people, I’ve found.

Maybe I just don’t want people to like me. Perhaps there is a sick part of me that likes scorning their awe.

What a pig I am.

But I’ve got to say, the role of misfit has always just been more fulfilling to play. Don’t you agree?

I gave the hometown chic with the good intentions my number and told her that we should eat lunch together sometime, since she is interning just a few blocks east of where I work. We rode the bus home together and I looked at pictures of her boyfriend on her phone and at her new sweater from Neiman Marcus. My phone does not take pictures. My clothes are from the thrift shop. Will we dine together some noontime? I don’t exactly know why, but I hope so.

Even though I had to unbury my yearbook and turn every page in search of her face in order to discover the name of the person’s number I had plugged into my cell phone, I’d like the chance to have another girl friend in this city, especially one as open and charming as her. I’d like to let her get to know the real me; I hope that she will enjoy my reality more than my rumors. And I hope that I will be able to see beyond our differences in class/place in life and fully enjoy her company as well.

________________________________________________________________________
So, what is rumored about you?

*

To give purpose to all the idiosyncratic things I scribble down over the course of a week but that really have no place in my writing, I bring you a new segment of the Chicagoartgirl23 blog entry, the Random Tangent.

Random Tangent of the Day
There are two types of people in this world—those who love Neapolitan ice cream and those who are constantly bitching that there is always too much strawberry and never enough chocolate.

I’m proud to say that I am the former. You?

This week has not been rosy. In fact, aside from chatting with my grandpa on the phone to help them plan a highly anticipated trip to Chi-town this month and getting to show my friend Squee around the Dan Flavin exhibition that is up at my museum (see it through October 30 at the MCA, ladies and gents!), I’ve stepped onto quite a few landmines this week. Most of them I can’t blog about (but that make my blood BOIL and have prompted me to wage WAR on a particularly thieving, selfish mammal that I’ve had the displeasure of knowing), but the rebellion of my sinuses has been more than enough to contend with. As with anyone having a crap-ass week, sometimes the littlest things keep me going. This week, it was an idea that was helped along, in large part, by my Xanga peeps. For this, I bring you…

Thank You for Being a Friend (down the road and back again…)
© The Author, 2005

Okay. So I promised myself that I would just work work work on my story today, but I’ve simply got to share the long awaited answer to a question that I’ve been chewing over for some time now (okay, so I might be procrastinating just a little bit here…). You may remember a few posts ago, I wrote about my desire to think of an obsession for my main character. This was particularly difficult for me because the obsessions that I have—campy things, justice, and a new addition: a fear of misspelling words at work—were too close to home for me to see them as any thing more than elements of my personality. But the responses of incredibly helpful “strangers”—that’s you—really got me thinking about how our obsessions can facilitate really great plot points. The responses revealed that some of you are obsessed with self-improvement. Many of you are obsessed with various fears. Both types of obsession are smacking with opportunity to further plot.

Anyhow, I just wanted to give a hearty thank-you to everyone who helped me out with that. I’m happy to share that my early draft is being overhauled and beefed up to include my main character’s playful obsession with Chef Giada De Laurentiis from the show Every Day Italian on Food Network, and his quiet, but sincere obsession with cooking.

And how, you may ask, do these things further the plot-line of a man who kidnaps his own child and takes her on a never-ending road trip? I guess you’ll all have to wait until it’s in print to find out…

::smile::
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What happy little golden nugget kept you going the last time you had a suckey week?

Yuck.
© The Author, 2005

Yesterday I did little more than read, watch movies, listen to an afternoon thunderstorm, and nap due to the gross feeling that my brains had leaked out of my sinus cavities and been replaced by pink, scratchy drywall. My eyes, once moist and eye-like, had been replaced by mummified mothballs.

This morning I woke knowing that I shouldn’t go to work. My neck felt like I had whiplash, my head pounded like I’d been boozing, and my stomach was all wobbly from being doused in a constant stream of sinus ooze.

Have I mentioned I’m hourly at work? With no paid sick days? Hi ho, hi ho…oh Christ, you know the rest.

I actually managed to get out the door to work a bit early, looking like shite in my coke bottle glasses (my eyes were too dusty to wear contacts today), humidity funkified hair, and a few angry pimples adding a fresh bit of color to my otherwise yellow, dead skin. I make it to the el right as it pulls up. Perhaps this won’t be such a bad day after all, eh?

Fat chance.

After chugging along through 2 stops, the train begins to move at a snails pace. Then it stops. Over the loudspeaker, a crackled message is spoken to us passengers, “A train derailment earlier this morning has the tracks leading into the Loop reduced from four tracks to two tracks. Please bear with us, there are many trains waiting ahead of us.”

Twenty. Minutes. Pass.

Have I ever mentioned my lovely habit of passing out when I’m uncomfortable? Well, on this un-air-conditioned sweat lodge of a train car, standing next to a man with a horrific cologne wafting from his every pore (I hate scented men), with no seats available to sit on and people pressed against me like maggots on a garbage can lid, I was uncomfortable to say the least.

Usually when I pass out the worst part is the embarrassment of waking up with an array of concerned strangers around me, asking me if I’m pregnant, or if I’ve had anything to eat in this lifetime. This bombardment of mortifying questions is remedied by me scurrying away from the situation as fast as my legs will take me—which is pretty damn fast.

Today, however, I was trapped. The train still hadn’t moved from its spot on the wooden tracks, towering above Sheffield St. There was no getting off.

“Are you okay?” The wafting man asked me.
“I’m fine. I just pass out sometimes.”
After peeling myself from the grimy floor, I moved to where an elderly gentleman was offering me a seat. I took it from him and glared across the aisle at the perfect blonde staring at me from over her enormous trendy sunglasses, her lipstick-ed mouth agape, her green gum lying listlessly on her tongue.

What a bitch, I thought, how can anyone let an old dude give up his seat?

I couldn’t hate her snobby little face for long, because soon her image was washed out by a torrent of tears welling up in my eyes. Was I sad? Not at all. I was a bit embarrassed, but nothing to cry over. Instead, it was as if all the moisture that my mummified eyes had been lacking came to me at once; a wall of tears gushed from my eyes. I wiped the wetness away, but my eyes kept refilling. And refilling. I wiped my endlessly watery eyes and cursed seasonal allergies forever.

Thanks to my over-active tear ducts, not only was I the freak who passed out, but now I also appeared to be crying about it. I was glad that I couldn’t see whatever prissy little look Ms. Bitch was giving me from across the aisle. But it did sort of suck that my watering eyes were preventing me from seeing much of anything at all. What’s worse, now my nose decided to join in on the party. It too leaked like Mr. Felt to the Washington Post.

Deepthroat indeed.

Finally, we reached the next train station, Belmont. I staggered off the car and made my way dizzily down the steps. I had been on the train for an hour and fifteen minutes, and I was only half way to work. Considering it usually takes 50 minutes tops (walking time included), this was heinous. I took a few deep breaths. I would call in; explain I was going to be late.

My fingers punched in the numbers: 867-5309.

(What, you don’t think that’s my real work phone? I work for Jenny. Benadryl makes me hillarious.)

The phone rang. I was ready to say, “Hey this is Truly. I’m going to be a bit late, the train was having some issues,” when I saw my reflection in the window of the station snack shop.

My hair was a freakish matt of curls and straight bits competing for which could frame my puffy, splotchy face worse. My eyes were glassy and beneath the walls of water, completely bloodshot. My nose was host to two worms of snot peeking their stupid heads out of my nostrils.

When my boss’s answering machine picked up, I felt no qualms in telling it, “I tried to make it in on the brown line, but as you might have heard that is having some issues this morning. It’s for the best I haven’t made it though, as my allergies seem to have gotten the better of me today.”

Then I blew my bubbling nose and took the bus home.
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How is the lovely change in seasons affecting your snout?