1. It tells you what you are missing.

She apologized for using the elevator, just to get to the third floor. “It’s been a long day,” she said.
“I get it,” I said. And then decided to flirt with her, on the ride up.

I told her I thought the elevator smelled like marijuana.
She agreed.
“Or Heinecken,” I added
“Or a combo of the two,” she said.

That was as far as we got. We had reached the third floor. I was on my way to the fourteenth.

It’s not about the dishes–they don’t have to be clean. Or dried. Or put away.

Just a chance to keep busy before the next chore: bedtime stories. Can’t decide what to read to him. If all else fails, I will choose the bible. He falls asleep fairly quickly anyway.

I’ll start with the Book of Exodus. I won’t get very far. My own eyes will grow heavy.

Maybe I should read something more lively. Dr. Seuss. J.K. Rowling. He says his heart cracks when he learns of Harry Potter’s misfortunes. If he comprehends the bible his heart may never mend. Not a chance I’m willing to take.

In the end I decide on National Geographic. The photography keeps him interested longer than I expected. He starts asking about caribou. We stay up way past his bedtime.

The boy had decided it was best to tell the truth, about his teeth, about the robin’s eggs, his mother, his pinkie, his towel, the rain, the piece of candy still stuck on the roof of his mouth. But truth could be told so much easily and with no words by grabbing his mother’s mascara and awning his eyes lashes with it, without benefit of a mirror.
His mother might be utterly confused by the site of him. She might yell and hit him. But the truth was there.

Among other things our boss has us do: wash our hands after lunch.
He doesn’t care whether we wash our hands before lunch. He doesn’t want us to our meats and sauces on the equipment. Which is pristine and high tech and of course expensive.
We are expensive too, us employees. But he says no, “You’re just an expense. There’s a difference.”
He can only control so much of what we do, how we treat the machines. But he tries to monitor our activities with them. There are cameras in the office.

We don’t care. We do mostly what we want. But we do comply with washing our hands after lunch. But not because of the boss. But because we care about the machines.

I’m sitting here with a steaming bowl of pasta, patiently, quietly waiting for it to cool down long enough to eat it.

During this time I say a little prayer–Grace they call it. But I am interrupted. It’s the pasta. I notice a fly on it. I shoo it away.

I will still eat the pasta. But I will have to keep my eyes open as I give thanks. But then I realize I’ve had my eyes open all along.

Let your eyes fall, let your beard sprout. It will make a big difference for the party.

A woman walked up to you, asked “Have we met before?”

You know you haven’t met her before, you’re almost sure. But you don’t want to disappoint her so you’ll say, “Maybe…did you ever live Pennsylvania? Were you ever in the Peace Corps? Did you ever see Staten Island during the Moscow revolution?” Okay, this last part is totally made up, fueled by your self-consciousness, which is fueled by her stare.

Which accomplishes two things: it let’s her know you are trying. And it let’s you know you want to know her. You want to have met before. Because back then is always such a safer place to be than now, when you know nothing of her.

It is rare, he says as he rolls over in bed, pondering what to say to his wife after what he’s done, after what she’s said about what he’s done.
She doesn’t want a divorce. But she does want revenge.
“I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”
“Anything?”
“You know it.”
“Then….take…out the garbage.”
He wails in pain at her request. He is gutted by it.

Mitch sat on his sandwich.
“Mitch!” Everyone yelled in horror at what he’d done.
“Sorry!” he said, bolting up from his chair, mayonnaise smearing the bottom of his distressed jeans and a sprig of lettuce dangling from his belt buckle.
To ease his embarrassment he reached for his Taragrance-flavored glass of water. Which never tasted as good and refreshing as it did now. After a few gulps, he felt ready for anything.
And shortly thereafter he fathered three children. The tonic water had worked better than expected.
“Mitch!” Everyone yelled in horror at what he’d done.
“Sorry,” Mitch said. But then he thought that this latest error was no worse than sitting on a sandwich.

She ran on a dime. But not very far. For a dollar she ran a mile. For five dollars, five miles. But for any longer distances, she would only settle for a quarter of a million dollars.

“Why the sudden jump in amount?” Reporters asked. For they’d been following this story since she started jogging in the park. Something about the way she looked, and jogged, captured the imagination of the media.

“Because,” she answered as they followed along her normal jogging path. “For any longer periods, what I would do with the money takes longer to ponder and therefore my jogging distance will be longer. For a dime, I’ll remember where I left those old love letters. For a dollar, I’ll think about those cheap snacks I served a dear old lover. For five dollars, I’ll imagine which restaurant I’ll end a long love affair. But for two hundred thousand, I have a future, with more possibilities. That takes longer to think about. It’s no longer about what I can buy or what I can find, but what I can create. And when that happens, it takes longer to think about.

“So why running? Why not just sit and think?” These two questions came from the only reporter who continued to follow her story. He was also the only report who could keep up with her quickening pace.

She did not answer him. She ran faster. The reporter could not keep up and fell behind.

Ahead, a portly man stood there, waving at her. She remembered him: she’d once waited on him at a deli she worked at, a couple of years ago.  She slowed as she ran past him. She noticed what appeared to be a cashier’s check flapping from one of his hands. “Good day,” she said and ran on.

“Wait!” he called out to her.

“I’m on mile four,” she said. “If you’re still here on my next go ’round, we’ll talk.”

“But I might not be,” he said, his voice barely carrying as he watched her round the bend.

“I might not be either,” she replied. A reply he could no longer here as she disappeared from his view.