Pink Slip Party Read Online Free PDF Page A

Plebe. Or Indentured Servant. Or, most accurate, Acceptable Loss.
    So. What. Am. I. To. Write.
    I like,
Imperial Grand Duchess, Ruler of World, Worth Far More Than She Has Ever Been Paid, Supreme Being of Supernatural Intelligence and Artistic Creativity, Destined For Great Fame and Riches.
    This might be too much.
    I delete “Worth Far More Than She Has Ever Been Paid” — this sounds like I’ve settled for less than I deserve. CEOs and royalty never settle. Neither shall I.
    I spend another half hour before I am sucked back into the temptation of daytime television. Maury is having yet another round of Paternity Tests. I think he is trying to single-handedly subsidize the nation’s DNA labs.
    Those tests are a waste of time.
    The father is never the clean-cut guy with the regular paycheck, the khakis, and superior dental hygiene. It’s always the pimp with missing teeth who grabs his crotch and taunts the audience.
    It’s like watching a bad sitcom.
    The ending is always the same.
    As always, watching television sucks in time like a black hole. Everything in its immediate grip moves very slowly. Everything outside moves very, very fast. I like to think if I never left my couch, I’d live forever. I could watch everyone grow old outside my window. I’d stay exactly the same and wouldn’t age, like Dick Clark and Twinkies.
    When I look up again from the crotch-grabbing Neanderthal, I find that I have run out of time to shower (not that I would have had the motivation to do it even if I did have time).
    It is only Todd.
    And a career fair.
    I throw on a bandanna to cover my grease-slicked hair, and put on a moderately clean pair of crumpled pants I find in a heap on my closet floor.
    “What the hell are you wearing?” is the greeting I get from my brother Todd. Todd, predictably, has not come to lunch alone. He is with his sidekick, Kyle Burton. Kyle, who grew up next door, has known me since the days I used to run around wearing only the bottoms of my Wonder Woman Underoos. Not that I won’t still do that, but these days it requires quite a significant amount of alcohol.
    “I can’t afford drycleaning,” I say, by way of defense. I notice, rather belatedly, there is quite a large dust ball clinging to the hem of my pants.
    “Nice bandanna,” Kyle says, pointing to my head. “Going for the urban look?”
    “I’m thinking of forming my own gang,” I say.
    “The Packin’ Power Puff Girls?” he suggests.
    “That, or Barbie’s Bitches.”
    “Jane,” sighs Todd, who is shaking his head slowly back and forth. “Jane, you can’t go to the job fair looking like that.”
    “Todd, it’s not your problem,” I say, beginning to wonder if a free meal is worth all this hassle. A waiter plunks a menu in front of me, and I realize I’ve survived the day eating only olives.
    Kyle is smirking at me.
    “What?” I say, shooting him a dirty look.
    “Er, well,” Kyle says, clearly trying to hide a smile. “Your, uh, bandanna is crooked. It’s leaning quite dangerously to the left.”
    I reach up and give it a tug.
    “Your other left,” he says.
    I let Kyle’s insolence slide.
    Kyle — successful corporate attorney Kyle — recently suffered a serious relationship mishap, and therefore wins the Sympathy Vote.
    A year ago, Kyle was in a long-term, when-are-they-going-to-get-married relationship with a woman named Caroline who I never cared for, but could see her obvious attractions (the most obvious of which was that she looked like Catherine Zeta Jones). One day, however, Caroline decided she’d rather live in Sydney. Without Kyle. Since then, he’s been on permanent rebound, taking up with Todd in pursuing fake blondes half his age.
    Kyle, being steadfastly good-looking, too smart for his own good, and the owner of a black BMW, has been wildly successful in this quest for women with IQs in the two-digit range.
    I take satisfaction in the fact that I am one of only two people who know that when Kyle was