On my 9:30AM break I walked down to Rite Aid
and bought a sugar free Red Bull and a bag of Sour
Patch Kids. I held off on the Sour Patch Kids until
around 11:30. I ate half the bag. I only stopped
because my teeth started to hurt. My face was peeling
from the sunburn I got Sunday. I peeled dead
skin off of my right ear for a good ten minutes.
I wanted to go in the bathroom and lock the door
until I could peel the rest off. I flirted with
one of the Insurance Agents on the phone. He sounded
young, so I looked up his information in the system
and saw he was twenty-eight. I refrained from
looking him up on Facebook on my phone. I’m thinking
about doing that tomorrow. But sometimes faces can
be such a disappointment to a cute voice.
While preparing the payroll sheets for my department
I noticed that one of my co-workers start date
was in 1985. She’s worked here for twenty-seven years,
this woman who shuts out the sun from the only windows
we have, who complains of the cold and wears a sweater
in the summer. I looked around my cubicle and hated
my job more than I have since I started. A construction worker
whistled at me on my way to Starbucks when the wind
may have blown my skirt up more than anticipated. I didn’t
really want Starbucks but I was hoping the cute guy who works
there would take my order. I spent $4.27 on a fancy drink
with empty calories. When I used the bathroom after lunch
I enjoyed the Pumpkin Spice soap someone bought at
The Christmas Tree Shop for us to use because
she doesn’t like the smell of the regular soap
in the push container near the sink. Someone stole
the last bottle of Fresh Cucumber scent she put in there
yesterday. I’m not sure what the office is coming to when
people are stealing soap from the public bathroom, but I still
I couldn’t stop smelling my fingers after I got back to my desk.
I’m not really sure if the construction worker whistled
at me, because my headphones were in my ears. But
he gave me that look, you know?
On my ride home in rush-hour traffic across the Q-Bridge
I scream-sang the Divinyls’ I Touch Myself while banging
on my steering wheel. I felt like I was singing seductively
while men in SUVs next to me stared, and I thought that maybe
I could give you a strip tease to this song using the supporting beam
in our basement when you get home. But then I thought of the spider
I saw down there last week and remembered I’m getting my period
in a few days. I’m glad I only had to talk to you on the phone today and not
come home to you as usual. When you’re on your business trips
I get to eat Chinese food and watch HGTV and sleep diagonally in the bed.
Cassie Ciopryna has her BA in English and will soon be receiving an MFA in Poetry. She currently works in a mind-draining office day job and hopes to be saved from it soon. She has been published in Adanna and Silent Revelations Press.