I hung up the phone before I lost it on the poor customer service rep or threw my phone out the window.
I settle in to wait for Annie, already opening my email to find comfort in Ali’s words. I immediately bathe in the stab of pride at Ali’s first line, that what I’m doing is really cool. And then I get hard. Again.We must refrain from sending our coworker a dick pic, I chant in my head. I start typing.
From: [email protected]
Why, thank you, Ali. It’s rare that I get that sort of feedback. Regarding the job, I mean. I get all sorts of weird and inappropriate feedback about the goods, though (now that I think about it, for some strange reason, that doesn’t include you).
Also, I don’t like when you talk about yourself like that. Tell me more, but this time, don’t be so mean to yourself. Tell me more about how Ali shines.
I’ll start.
1. You have such a way with words.
2. A way with words that gets me [Redacted for Work Email].
3. I don’t wonder what you look like every time I [Redacted for Work Email].
As I hit send on what I suppose some may classify as the written, not quite safe for work version of a dick pic, I hear a commotion outside the car. I peer out the window, over to my left… and my blood pressure spikes hard enough to shrivel my erection and cause legitimate medical concern. But underneath the alarm is something entirely unexpected: a visceral, primal surge ofmine, must protect.
I decide to unpack this at a later time and jump out of the car and run over to where Annie, all roughly five feet and change of her, is standing toe-to-toe with a furious man about my size. Except he’s built like he’s been suckling pure HGH since birth.
“Annie, honey,” I cut in, “step back.”
Both she and the dude snap their heads toward me.
Her lip starts to curl back when the guy grunts, “She yours? Tell her to go get me a new?—”
“Fuck you, you motherfucking roided-up jar of expired whey protein,” Annie snarls, entirely ignoring my request and taking a step forward like she’s not half this dude’s mass. The violence of it stops me in my tracks. “You knocked into this poor woman and tripped over your own over-inflated ego—then you wanna cry about your soda? Get a fucking grip.”
It’s then that I notice the elderly Asian couple behind her—both halfAnnie’ssize, the woman clutching an all-white mobility cane, both of them visibly shaken.
I silently move to their side, at Annie’s back.
Annie jabs a finger in the dude’s face. “Go bench press some accountability, dick. You want a new drink? Why don’t you wring one out of your nasty-ass, creatine-soaked compression shirt?”
The guy blinks, stunned, like the rage circuit in his brain shorted out from the sheer force of being verbally bodied by someone half his size. “What the f?—”
The three of us behind Annie collectively relax, because the situation now readshandled. I wonder, briefly, if I should de-escalate or hold Annie’s metaphorical earrings.
“Oh, now you’re speechless?” Annie barks, arms out. “You’ve been snorting and grunting like a juiced-up buffalo and stomping your little hooves—,” I glance down and his feetarecomically small, “—and suddenly you can’t form a sentence? Why don’t you run back to your Mustang convertible—” I scrub my face at this, “—and drive back to whatever shithole gym you came from. Sweat out some of that toxic masculinity.”
The dude shakes his head. “Crazy-ass bit—” he starts, and I go blind.
I take a step forward. “Careful.” I surprise myself with the tone my voice has taken, allmetalanddangerandmurder, while I am normally more of anextra marshmallows, pleaseanddo-you-wanna-hear-my-ranking-of-all-the-Spider-Verseskinda guy.
He glances between the two of us.
“You may have more muscle,” I inform him, then point to Annie, “but she will set your Mustang convertible on fire.”
He shakes his head again and storms off, muttering under his breath.
I look over at Annie as if to check her for injuries, but she’s already moved towards the elderly couple, speaking to them in warm, soothing Cantonese. The man clutches Annie’s arm with both hands. There is a lot of what I believe is “thank you.”
Annie makes eye contact with me and gestures me over. “Let’s walk them to their car,” she says, and I’ve never moved faster to take someone’s orders. The woman takes my arm with a frail hand, and we guide them across the lot.
After they drive away, Annie looks at me. I still feel juiced up with adrenaline and ready to, like, wrestle a hippopotamus or flip a tractor tire or scream into an abyss, or something.
