Kiss ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.
It’s my mom’s birthday! Everyone, grab your mom and give her a hug if you can.
Today was the last day of one of the managing partners - that I actually like - at work. Someone made him a giant card. They asked me to sign it. So I did. I wrote…. okay wait a second. Some backstory. I’ve been up since 8am yesterday. That’s like 40 hours in a row. Working. I’m bleary and delirious. I’m blelirious. So when they handed me the pen, and showed me the card, and I had a very limited space left over to write in, I had to distill the last conversation I had with this man down to something pithy, but my internal editor was switched off about 21 hours ago. So I harkened back to this convo, in which we talked about Japan, (where he is moving,) and how, as a very tall white man, he would be stared at open mouthedly on the train. I judged I had about four words’ worth of space. So I wrote - this is genius, actually -“Russell. Enjoy being exotic. - Andrea”
I KNOW.
Instantly, I knew I had fucked up his card. “Enjoy being exotic???” Are you fucking kidding me? But I couldn’t, like, fix it. How would I do that? Then I thought, evilly, that I could add an S initial after my name, and ascribe this retard note to the other Andrea that I work with. No, no, that’s too mean. Scribble it out? Try to scrape off that top layer of paper? Panic set in.
I called the kid with the card. Told him I had to fix it. He brought it over, with a selection of pens. I stared at the inscription. He was like, white out! Um, guys, its 2010. I think they stopped making white out in 1987. But, out of desperation, I checked the top drawer of my desk that I never go into, in which all the inherited detritus of four art buyers remained. And there it was! A roller thing full of white, powdery, mistake corrector!
So I paint-chalked-out over the note, and then wrote over the powdertape “Russell, Enjoy this next chapter. - Andrea” Okay, benign, short, barely noticeable. I was feeling pretty good about matters until my finger barely brushed over the white stuff, and it flaked off.
I told the kid to take the card away. At least I’ll never see exotic ol’ Russell again.
