Busted

Last night I went to the batting cages. You know, to practice my mediocre swing in the hopes of making it on first base. To bring you up to speed, I joined a co-ed softball league although I had never played the sport. Well, maybe once or twice when I didn’t skip out of my P.E. class, but that was two decades ago.

If you’ve never been inside a batting cage, it’s pretty daunting. While a ball launches from a machine every thirty seconds (directly aimed at your temple), there are rogue balls from other batters that at times end up in the cage. In the case of last night, one of the batters broke his bat and one of the splintered pieces ended up directly in front of my machine. Instead of waiting until I was done, the batter decided to play real-life Frogger, which gave me a new target to aim for. Lucky for him, I’m really, really bad.

After finding comfort in a sweet cup of frozen yogurt from Menchies, I headed home. Happy to just jump in the shower and collapse until that horrifying alarm jolts me out of bed. Only, upon opening the door, my dog, who regularly greets me with howls and tail wags, was eerily quiet and had a suspicious look on her face.

I called out to her in the way that one would when you hope you haven’t walked in on someone having sex.

“Poopie Monster?”

I inched closer and found that there wasn’t another dog hiding around the corner, but did notice she had what appeared to be chocolate on her chin. Under her paw was an empty wrapper with tiny teeth marks all across it, making it look like one of those carnival games that makes you shoot out a red star out of a piece of paper to win a stuffed penguin.

Upon further inspection, the last piece of the dark chocolate and cherry cashew deliciousness was on her bed, where she was, I can only imagine, hoarding it for a later date. Without having to say a word to her, she coiled up like an earthworm.

I threw away the last piece, picked up the wrapper, cleaned her face all without uttering a single word.

A few hours later, she came into the bedroom where she asked politely to get into bed with us. The librarian picked her up as I was still fuming.

A few hours after that, while the librarian dreamt of books and card catalogs, I was awake, staring at the dog who could not stop hiccuping.

A few hours after that, that stupid alarm sounded. I haphazardly threw clothes on my body, slipped into my flip-flops, as I customarily flippity-flop to work and switch into heels once at my desk. I placed sunglasses on my face and ran my hands through my hair to shake away the pillow mark from the back of my head. With my backpack filled with equipment for my evening softball game, I drove like a maniac to make it to work.

At 9:01, I flipper-skippered into the cafeteria, poured myself a cup of Starbucks Bold Roast and grabbed a dark chocolate and cherry cashew flavored protein bar. At 9:05 I boarded the elevator with coffee in one hand and a protein bar in another. Sunglasses, flip-flops, and backpack still in their original positions. As the doors inched closer, a hand jolted them apart and in come not one, but four vice presidents. Four. I tried to coil up in the back corner of the elevator, but one of the four, an executive vice president, looked at me and smiled without saying a word.

When I stepped out of the elevator, I noticed my reflection, which clearly showed I had chocolate all over my chin.