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It’s well past four AM at this point and highly doubtful that anyone has magically stumbled on my website, but…

What’s the harm?

Pulling up the email, it takes a few times to figure out the weird system the web designer set up, but the password is easy enough to remember.

Holy fuck.

There are dozens of emails and I decide to click on one…

My screen goes dark.

What the fuck?

I look to figure out what is wrong and see my laptop isn’t plugged in. I have managed to step on the cord and detach it from the overfilled power strip.

Bending down, I try to rectify that.

POP!!!

I am plunged into darkness, and there is an eerie silence as all the appliances and electronics in my apartment—and I imagine my neighbor’s—are shut off.

A transformer must have blown.

Again.

Heaving a sigh, I straighten back up and look wistfully at my laptop’s black screen, willing it to magically turn back on. When it doesn’t, I spin in my chair and roll myself to my bed.

Flopping into it, I gather the frog in my arms and try not to think too closely about all of my bad luck. On how it has followed me for years.

Faces flash behind my eyes, but I shake them away.

Instead, I let excitement brew.

I have emails! People want me to be their chef!

And that means: tomorrow, I will have my pick on which job to start first.

9

Beanie Weenie

Kale

My eyes burn as I watch all of the emails come in. One after another.

I take my glasses off, rubbing my eyes before putting them back on.

Fuck, this is going to be a lot. I can’t believe they didn’t bother to change the password.

Sipping my coffee, I pat my pupper’s head. She rests on the linoleum next to me. I tried to send her off to my bed, but she refused.

“Beanie, you never leave my side, such a good girl,” I coo to my dog. “I’m already getting so many leads.”

She lifts her head, demanding scritches, and I give her a few before focusing back on the task at hand.

It’s late…early, to the point that going to sleep now would just ruin the rest of the day, but I need to automatically direct these emails into a ghost account, so I can get them over to Sumac.

There’s already so many.