by Mikki Aronoff
Dang, I thought, making a face my mother used to slap me for, I thought this would be easy. But it was like racing to corral candies flying off a speeded-up confectionary conveyance belt, everyone else zipping and whizzing all around me doin’ their salaried business while I was tryin’ to pat my head and rub my stomach and sharpen my pencil while skidding on grease-splattered linoleum and just trying to stay upright. The manager looked at me askance, arms akimbo, asked if I’d counted on moving up, and where did I see myself in five years. Where did I, I wondered, then spiraled, scrunching my eyes and whirling across the floor like the Tasmanian Devil on steroids, feet ripping into the earth like a determined prairie twister ravaging an Oklahoma freeway exit town studded with rattlers and 7-Elevens. Hmmm, said the HR boss as he swooped me up from the hollow I’d bored into terra firma, then hoisted me onto his shoulders and waltzed me past the break room and the toilets. We sailed through the open glass doors into the sunshine and across the empty street to the oil drilling company, dollar signs flashing in his eyes like Scrooge McDuck.
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Mikki Aronoff plays with words and advocates for animals.
