I was in a group interview for a petsmart once, and this girl who had bullied me at our past job was there. We were all told to go around the circle and say why we wanted to work there. All of us sensible folks answered with generic interview stuff like “I love animals” and “I admire the help this company gives to shelters” and all that… then the bully spoke up.
I think of my life as having occurred in four parts. The first part closed with the revelation that songs on the radio are in fact pre recorded and the artists are not being summoned to the station with dark magic every time someone requests their song. The second divider was the first time I tasted custard pie. And the event that launched me here, into the most surreal and disjointed phase of my life, was this girl’s answer to the fateful question “why do you want to work at petsmart?”
And the answer
I shit you not…
“I have a reptile fetish.”
The silence after that statement… the hopelessness, the confusion, the despair in that silence, it fundamentally changed me as a human being. I witnessed cosmic justice at its darkest and its coldest. The universe is powerful, the universe is vengeful, and the universe is merciless.
This whole bro code thing where if a guy dates his friend’s sister he’s betraying the friend is wild, you would think your sister dating your friend meant you didn’t have to worry because he’s someone you know and trust but it just goes to show how all these bros know one another to be misogynistic and predatory and regularly exhibit that behavior around one another, and it’s all fun and games and bros before hos until somebody hits on somebody’s sister. Like, clearly you are aware that you are all gross to women but that’s okay with you as long as you and your friends are targeting random women and no one is doing the same to your sister or mother? Why do women have to be related to you for it to occur to you to respect them?
concept: me, 10 years from now, living in a pretty house with my love, sipping a hot cappuccino on a rainy autumn afternoon. our dog curls up next to me in the window bench while our cat snoozes on the bed. i’m financially stable and i’m never tired anymore. the bees are safe.
