Small Kitten

I’m tucked into my windowsill wondering what mundane day it is today. I romantically fashion it to be a Monday because that would mean my line up of shows would be on tonight and I could drift into what is best described as a glazed over snack grabbing goblin. For two hours I can justify my sin of sloth because I am helping actors line their pockets with my viewership. It’s a societal contribution, I promise you cannot tell me otherwise. However, it is not Monday, it is Thursday. Thursday is a minimal activity day, for I am unemployed and have been for several months. Thursday is when I open the laptop as if it were the door of a confessional giving myself silent congratulations every week for executing the task. Thursdays are important because I have to complete my online unemployment questionnaire. I log in type in my name and password, I don’t trust google so I never save it. I don’t look at the questions anymore since I have them memorized. “Have you been looking for work this week?” Yes of course as I snicker and roll my eyes and click “No.” “Are you injured or impaired in any way that prevents you from looking for employment?” I always click yes, because I find my personality to be a people repellent, but they have yet to classify it as a legitimate ailment. I write that I have depression because they can’t tell you that your depression is false. There are a couple more questions that I answer yes, no, yes to and submit. Whatever they are I must be answering them correctly because I keep getting paid.

The truth is, I would like to work but as my personality provides this seemingly impenetrable barrier to integrating in with the shiny people. I do make an effort to go on interviews but somehow my saccharine sweet style of passive-aggressive work banter is no longer a hit. I am finding that employers want a more organic feel to the disdain felt due to lack of appreciation and high-performance demand. Two things I have yet to master because my effort dangles between the realms of I don’t and care.

Why the hell is someone knocking at my door? I’ve been sitting here basking in my cleverness and now that has been interrupted. Do I have a package? I don’t think I’ve ordered anything, but I do get drunk on occasion and open my laptop when it’s not a Thursday, but it’s been weeks since the last time I’ve done that. I guess I’ll see who or what it is. I open my door and see a small black book adorning my semi-new welcome mat that reads “Hoe, why is you here?” An impulse buy that is definitely the gift that keeps giving. If I had friends, I’m sure they would share the same sentiment for its lighthearted vulgarity. I pick up the book and swiftly look both ways for who could have placed it there. A cartoonish figure was hurriedly hobbling down the hallway. I didn’t bother yelling because he must have been in a hurry and what he does is none of my business.

I pick up the book and rifle through it. The first few pages are blank so assume the hallway hobbler must have dropped it in a rush and the book is new. No harm. No foul. That wouldn’t explain the knocking, but stranger things have happened. I’ll keep it until I see him or her again. Perhaps I can put it in the lobby of the apartment building-I don’t think the place is so seedy that it will get taken, at least not immediately. It is pretty nice though, the pigment of the black is very rich and the cover seems to be moleskin. Too expensive for my taste but I’ll hold on to it before I put it in the lobby, having it makes me feel kind of important.

Today is Friday and I have no food but I forgot my food stamps were loaded on to my county card and now I may be able to splurge a little. I might add some eggs to my ramen and maybe some black olives today. Take that Gordon Ramsay! As I gather my light coat, green fanny pack and slide into my flip-flops, a rock comes hurtling through my open window. I run to the middle of the room, where the rock remarkably managed to miss every single thing that could have broken in its path on its descent to my carpet. I pick up the rock to throw it back outside and notice that it had ‘Twat’ scribbled on it. I began to immediately giggle, because it made me think of my mother. She often called me that when I was younger. It wasn’t until I was about 14 or so that I figured out it didn't mean a small kitten. I threw the rock back out of the window without looking and heard the cries of a child almost immediately after. My bad. I put my sunglasses on grabbed my keys and locked the door behind me.

Yes! I am home and out of the crowd of air sucking mouth breathers often referred to as the general public. I unpack my bag full of nutrient deficient goodies and pull out a pot to get my ramen started. As I am filling the pot with water, I hear knocking at my door again. Two days in a row someone has knocked on my door. In all of the history of me being an adult who lives on my own, this has never happened. I open the door blindly not knowing what could possibly be waiting for me the other side. If I had a peep hole I would have looked. As I open the door a deep bellowing voice yells “Cue the music Rick!” I see a Tupac impersonator standing in front of me shirtless. The music Tupac sampled for his hit ‘Dear Mama’ was playing in the background. The impersonator began to rap the lyrics and for fun I begin to body roll in my doorway. This is the most fun I have had in quite sometime and I can truly say is perhaps the most bizarre. I wasn’t going to tip his ass, so I slowly body rolled myself back into my apartment and locked the door before he could finish.

I listened for the impersonator and his crew to pack up and ate my black olive ramen while watching some mindless show about couples where one professionally ties shoes and the other chases butterflies and they decide which mansion they want to live in, when it occurred to me I should check the mail. It has been the better part of a month at least. I can also put that black notebook. In the lobby and whoever dropped it can pick it up. I walk down to the lobby and realize that I have forgotten my key to open the mailbox. Welp, it looks like I’m not getting the mail. As I turn to go back up the stairs my flip flop breaks and I fall onto the bottom portion of the landing directly on my left arm and rib, flinging the notebook from my hands. As I am gathering myself and throwing my torn flip-flop into the oblivion, I turn around and see a letter has fallen out of the book. Cool. Maybe I can find out who it belongs to and they can come and get their property.

I turn the envelope over and notice that it has a name on it. “Small Kitten” it read. I open it and unfold the letter. I was afraid to read it, I had so many questions.

Hello you mangy twat!

I have been trying to reach you. I have been needing to talk to you for several months now but you don’t have social media, you dont answer your phone, you barely go outside and I know you would have shushed me if I had come to you in person. I need to tell you something and it is something very important. Listen, son, I have come into some money, enough money for seven or eight lifetimes. I can offer you $20,000 a week for the rest of your natural life if you will do me one favor. Come live with me in my golden years. That is all I really want from you. I know that you don't believe me, but it is true. Your father was the billionaire John Latrine. He and I were lovers for many years. It is the age old story of him being married and needing to keep a wholesome public persona. I understood and respected it as best I could until I could no longer take being the other woman. He became upset with me when I took up with another man. He stopped supporting us and that is when we moved out of the house. Do you remember how devastating that was for us? Well, he has died. Turns out the little woman who was his wife for all of these years was a cheat too. John found out that none of his children were his biological children after all. You are the only one. Out of spite, he wrote her out the will and confessed his love for me on his deathbed. We. Got. Everything. So now that you have this very exciting information, come and take your place next to me. We no longer have to deal in the peasantry of the boring, the ugly and all around unfortunate beings. You can still play around with this hobo chic motif you love so much that is filled with frozen potstickers and black olive ramen. Come be the nouveau riche with me. We can dance on his grave in the moonlight wearing Prada shoes with our LITERAL pockets lined with his cash. What say you? My number is the same.

Love,

Mom

I crumpled up that letter and whispered “Hell-to-the-naw, I’m not living with your crazy ass, you sent Tupac to my house.” and took my barefooted self back upstairs and threw that book down the garbage chute on the way.