Prologue
I’ve got issues.
Lots of them.
Too many to count, really.
Like the fact I’m twenty-four and living in my parents’ basement… again. The last time I lived here was right after college. I couldn’t find a job related to my field of study: Linguistics. Also known as: the scientific study of language and its structure.
What? You can’t believe I’m unemployed?
I can. After my job hunt was futile, I googled “careers in linguistics,” thinking there’d be a plethora of jobs out there for someone with my expertise. *snort* Well, it turns out there are basically seven possible jobs in that field:
Computational linguist in the tech industry: Yeah. No. I can barely boot up my computer.
Linguistics professor: Now, this one sounds ideal, except I need at least four more years of college and a Ph.D.
Translator: That’d be perfect if I spoke another language with proficiency. I do not.
Forensic linguist: This one sounds the funnest (jk) the most fun. In that job, I could work with the FBI or a legal firm to analyze someone’s writing or speech or a bunch of other stuff. But, there again, I’d probably need a Ph.D. Hell. A master’s degree at the very least.
Technical writer: Nope.
Lexicographer: I had to look this bitch up.Lexicographers write, compile, and edit dictionaries for native speakers, learners of English, professionals, and bilingual speakers. Do I even need to comment?
Teach a foreign language: See # 3.
I mean, shouldn’t someone in the linguistics department at my university, like an advisor or something, have told me there are no jobs in linguistics in Chicago or anywhere? Well, okay, I’m being a little overly dramatic. There were one or two open jobs in that field, but I didn’t qualify for them. Employers want people with experience in linguistics, but it’s hard to get experience if no one will hire you. It’s what we call in the biz a clusterfuck.
No matter. I landed on my feet––for a while. I got a job at an online newspaper as an administrative assistant. My boss was an asshat, but I sort of liked him. No, I didn’t like himthatway, but I appreciated his dry humor and disdain for the human race. We had a system. I did whatever he told me to do, and he paid me. It was perfect. Until it wasn’t. Until that fateful night two weeks ago at the company holiday party (God forbid they call it a Christmas party!). But I digress.
Here’s what happened: I’m at the company Christmas party where everyone was boozing it up. Things were getting rowdy; there was dancing on the desks. You get the idea? Anyway, I was getting into it too, drinking my share of the doctored punch. At one point, I made out with Petra, one of the IT guys I’d had my eye on for a while. After that, I danced a little, sang some terrible karaoke, and then I took one teeny tiny copy of my ass on the company photocopier andOh. My. God. My boss went batshit crazy. You’d have thought I stole a million bucks from the till the way he reacted.
Needless to say, my asshat boss fired me the following Friday. He waited to fire me because he had a big presentation that week and needed my help. So, once that was done, he canned me. He kept the pictures of my ass, by the way. The pervert.
Wow, I really got off topic there. Where was I? Oh, right.
I’ve got issues.
Lots of them.
I’ve already addressed a big one, but that one doesn’t hold a candle to the shit storm going down in my parents’ kitchen this lovely Christmas Eve morning. It’s a tradition for us to have a big Christmas Eve breakfast. “Where we can all talk about your lives, reconnect with one another, discuss fond memories from the past year, and dream of what’s to come in the new year, without worrying about gifts.”Those words, right there? My mom says them Every. Single. Year. the minute we sit down to eat. Just wait. You’ll see.
With this family tradition also comes the realization that my sister will make her annual appearance. She’s too busy to visit more than once per year, so it’s her one and only chance to tell us, face to face, all about her amazing life as an up-and-coming Chicago lawyer, on track to be a partner by the time she’s thirty. She’ll regale us with stories of fabulous parties she’s attended and will attend, as well as come-from-behind courtroom victories, and she’ll whisper things to Mom about buying a new this or a new that, and the two of them will giggle.
It’s stupid.
My God, do I sound like the biggest whiner or what? Wait. Don’t answer that question. I already know the answer. Honestly, my life isn’t all that horrible. While I’m not excited about living in my parents’ basement again, at least I have a roof over my head and my parents are pretty cool––most of the time. Sure, they can be annoying, but show me a parent that’s never annoying, and I’ll call bullshit.
They actually encouraged me to move home. Correction, Mom encouraged me to move home. Dad wasn’t all that thrilled—probably due to the fact I took over his man cave since my old bedroom is now Mom’s craft room. Something had to give, and Dad’s space was it. I sort of like it, even though I sleep on a sofa bed. My dad’s sixty-five-inch smart TV is a big-ass bonus. I’m able to keep up with all my reality TV needs, and I don’t have to pay for cable. Bonus two is the fact that I’ve got a washer dryer right in my unit. No more schlepping my dirty laundry up and down three flights of steps and four blocks down the street and paying three bucks a load. Nope. It’s free and so dang handy. See? What’d I tell you? I’m living the life. I live rent-free, so almost every cent I make at my part-time gig at the grocery store goes right into my pocket. I say “almost” because I have a tiny, itty-bitty addiction to Totino’s Party Pizza. Seriously, it’s an a-d-d-i-c-t-i-o-n. If my mom told me she was serving turkey and Totino’s for Christmas dinner, I’d do a frigging happy dance. Sign me up, bitches.
Ooh, did I mention that I’ve got access to Mom’s deep freeze and the toaster oven I had at my shoebox apartment in the city? Swear to God, I got a chill just thinking about my stockpile of party pizzas at my fingertips. What the hell was I complaining about before? Life isgood.
Chapter One
“Josephine!”
The second I hear someone shouting the name on my birth certificate, I pull the blanket over my head and moan.
