I froze, then very slowly turned my head toward my asshole bird. “You didn’t just do that.”
Markie puffed slightly. “OOOH.”
I pointed a finger at him. “Mind. Your. Business.”
He leaned closer to the bowl and took another bite, then he raised his head again.
I walked to my desk and opened my laptop. The machine took approximately two seconds to wake up, then the notifications poured in.
Slack exploded across the screen. Messages stacked instantly. Ticket alerts. Customer escalation flags. Internal threads.
Someone had already tagged me three times in the span of ten minutes.
I stared at the screen as my brain tried to boot up fully.
It made a sound somewhere between a groan and a prayer.
“Oh my god.”
Another Slack ping.
Then another.
And another.
My shoulders sagged.
The peace that had enveloped me upon waking vanished immediately as the full weight of my normal operating system slammed back into place.
I closed the laptop.
No. Absolutely not. Not until coffee.
I pushed away from the desk and walked into the kitchen.
Water first. Then coffee. Then whatever counted as breakfast in a household that had clearly prioritized ice cream over responsible grocery shopping.
I opened the cabinet and stared inside. Protein bars. Peanut butter. Half a bag of questionable granola.
Good enough.
Behind me, from the bedroom, I heard the groan of my bedframe.
I reached for the coffee grinder and poured in a scoop of beans. The machine rattled loudly against the counter while I leaned my hip against the cabinet and waited. Markie crunched through his breakfast with impressive commitment.
When the grinder finally stopped, I dumped the grounds into the filter and filled the kettle at the sink.
The apartment stayed quiet except for the sound of water and Markie chewing.
I poured the water into the machine, pressed the button, and stood there for a moment watching the first drops fall into the pot.
Progress.
A few minutes later, I filled a mug and took a long sip, staring into the cabinet while my brain attempted to reassemble itself into a functioning adult.
My brain had just reached the stage of consciousness where it was considering the possibility of cooperating when footsteps sounded behind me.
I turned.
