“I’d say it’s roomy, but compact. Like a balloon valance. Or a Honda Accord.”
Then Jason got all weird and yelled, “You aren’t supposed to tell me your vagina is like a Honda Accord! WE WORK TOGETHER,” and I’m all, “You brought it up!” Then there was this awkward silence while I tried to look penitent and Jason tried to look stern, but technically I was just thinking about how a giant labia would be a great lap blanket on cold nights, and Jason was probably wondering what a balloon valance was. So then I was all, “It’s like a tiny curtain,” and Jason was like, “What!?” and I just said, “Oh, never mind.”
Today an applicant who couldn’t pass the typing test blamed it on me for giving her “a trick keyboard because the keys weren’t in alphabetical order.” I tried to explain that all keyboards are laid out the same way and she called me a liar. I apologized and told her that if she wanted to bring in an alphabetized keyboard, I’d be happy to hook it up for her so she could retest, and she yelled, “I’M NOT GOING TO PAY TO REPLACE YOUR SHODDY EQUIPMENT.” So I told her to go across the street to the computer store, find an alphabetical keyboard, and have them put it on our account. An hour later the computer store called to ask that we stop sending crazy people over there.
This afternoon my coworker, a sweet but sheltered girl named Collette, called me into her office. “Did you know that amputee porn is a thing? Because it is. Amputee porn.” She looked like she might be going into shock, and I considered finding a blanket to wrap her in. “This guy’s supervisor found porn in a printer, so she asked me to check his hard drive, and it’s filled with amputee porn.”
I apparently didn’t look shocked enough, because she looked at me and slammed her tiny fist on the desk, screaming: “AMPUTEE PORN.” Clearly she needed an intervention, as she was stuck in a porn loop.
I pulled up one of the pictures, a legless naked woman. “Okay, see? This isn’t even amputee porn. It’s just . . . bad Photoshop. You can tell because there are shadows where her legs were before they were airbrushed out. I mean, it’s still totally porn. It’s just not real amputee porn.”
Collette looked at me with sad, dead eyes, her innocence scarred forever. “So what about this?” she asked as she enlarged a photo of a one-legged girl in a bikini. “Is this porn? Or is it not? Because I can’t even tell anymore. I mean, it must be porn, because it’s in his porn folder, but I just don’t know. It’s a girl with one leg, who’s waterskiing. Is it supposed to be empowering? Is it pornographic? I DON’T EVEN KNOW.”
I didn’t have an answer for her. When you can’t tell whether something’s porn or not anymore, that’s when you know it’s time to go home. Or to quit. Possibly both.
IT WOULD BE PARTICULARLY fitting (and easy) to finish this chapter with a paragraph about how I personally ended my career in HR because I lost my ability to tell porn from real life, but that would be a lie, as I actually quit because I wanted to give myself a year to find out whether I could be a writer. I told my boss that I had a book inside of me, and that I needed to get it out even if I had to squeeze it through my vagina. Because that’s exactly what the world needs. A book squeezed from my vagina.
But it must have been a worthwhile bet, since you’re now holding that very book in your hands. Unless this is the year 2057, and you’re a police detective holding this stained, unfinished manuscript as you stand over the body of the lonely elderly woman who was found partially eaten by her own house cats, and this chapter ends with a handwritten note that says, “Note to self: Find a more upbeat way to end this chapter, because being eaten by cats is depressing, and also a terrible running theme to have in a book. Also, buy cat food and pay the insurance on the hovercar.” If this is the case then I apologize to you for the state of my apartment. Please know that I was not expecting company, and that I usually never have dirty dishes in the sink or partially eaten bodies on the floor. I can assure you this whole day is a total anomaly for me.
1. Did you know that “ostensively” isn’t a word? Because I didn’t, and apparently I’ve been using the wrong word for my entire life. Apparently the “correct” word is “ostensibly.” Ostensively.
If You See My Liver, You’ve Gone Too Far