Amy Arenson

Wank

     You let the alarm beep and snooze and beep and snooze fourteen times. That
transgression makes you fifty-six minutes late waking up, which simultaneously makes
you four minutes late for work. Not that you were sleeping while the alarm beeped
every four minutes; you were in a state of wrathful tossing with your hair practically
choking you.
    You have no choice but to be perfectly clean with nails scrubbed. As you walk
the ten steps from your bed to the shower you remind yourself that you were lucky to
get the job out of college. You rub your eyes as the water heats up. You rub for thirty
seconds, until you remember that with goals like yours, you cannot, at any cost, rub
your eyes. It causes puffiness and wrinkles. As you tear your hands away from your eyes
you think that it is a cruel world. You step into the shower. It is a world where even
the most beautiful woman, a woman like you, is miming on the wrong side of the glass
ceiling.
    You are eighteen minutes late. You know that a woman with your resume gets some
leeway, but there is a chance that someone in the crew could make a call to someone who
could stand in. You decide to lounge under the hot water until your chest is covered with
the merlot splotches you associate with a relaxing shower. You estimate that it will take
ten minutes. Yes, you think, a beautiful woman is shunned.
    It took you four years to figure out that you were wasting your time in college.
All along you had intentions to go to graduate school to study body-mind psychology, to
get a degree so that you could have a positive effect on society.
    It hit you when you were in the airport waiting for your flight to London; you saw
her. She must be a model, you thought. She has it all, a boyish body, emaciated cheekbones,
long legs, stiletto heels, a Louis Vuitton bag, a Yankees cap, and enormous glasses. Sure
enough, in the following weeks you saw her in ads selling everything from shoes to lingerie.
She was a goddess, and rich to boot.
    You glance down at your dappled chest and realize your ten minutes have passed. You
quickly wash your long chestnut hair and apply the protein-enhanced conditioner.

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