Missed?
She gets up suddenly, even before her alarm rings, thinking, That sticky note! I made a note on that. She jumps out of bed, grabs the laptop bag and dumps the contents on the bed. Apart from a dented laptop, a mouse in desperate need of cleaning, a half-eaten Snickers, assorted bills and fluff; it’s empty. She sighs and flops back — just as the alarm rings. Swearing, she gets back up.
She makes herself a coffee and tries to think where she could have left it. You are a klutz! A hare-brained idiot! she screams at herself.
She paces around the room for some time and collapses on the chair. Her limbs feel heavy. Her back hurts. She wonders if she’s coming down with the flu. Then she thinks, Fuck it. I don’t have time for this today. She mentally pulls herself together and gets ready for work.
As she’s signing in, the smarmy guy from marketing comes in. He wears an oily grin on his face and asks her, “Looks like someone had a good weekend. You already look exhausted. Must have been good, eh?”
She groans inwardly and says, gritting her teeth, “Weekend was fine. Thanks. How was yours?”
“Just fine? Come on! I saw you at that club, remember? And then the murders began…”
She snaps inwardly. “Oh! I remember. You were there too. You know, I think I caught my cold from there. I’m exhausted because of it. You’re sure you’re feeling okay?”
“What? And then the dog farted. You’re kidding me. Uh…I gotta go. I haven’t had my flu shots. Bye.”
He walks away quickly, checking himself for a fever. She grins and signs in.
She walks to her desk and opens her laptop. Her inbox is flooded. Damned Nagios alerts! She checks to ensure that the issue has been fixed, then gets ready to deal with the new project. Her mind circles back to it, instead of concentrating on task split-ups.
A new email. Damn! That bug was supposed to have been fixed and tested. She groans, Not another one. I am so dead! The client was already irritated with older bugs, and now this. She sets up a team meeting to resolve the issue. The crisis puts it out of her mind completely.
She catches a quick lunch at her desk. She’s got a few minutes now. She rummages through all the drawers. She doesn’t find it, although an unopened bag of M&Ms improves her mood a little. She tries to get back to work, but she can’t get anything going. She feigns a migraine, goes back home and collapses.
Late in the evening, the door bell rings. She drags herself to the door. It’s her brother.
“Hey! I can’t stay. Lori’s in the car. I just came to give you this. You dropped the receipt at home yesterday, so I picked it up for you.”
He hands her the package, gives her a quick hug and leaves. She’s stunned, happy, excited…all pains forgotten. She waves bye to her brother and takes the package to the living room. She opens it and takes out the final adoption papers. She takes a deep breath and opens the letter. It said, Congratulations! Your application has been accepted and…
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