Cute Bike_Hard to Accept_To the Town, To the Swings_Cheesy Rider
Catalog Guide:
Cute Bike
“Your bike is so cute!” To Maya, everything was ‘cute.’ Kat thought, ‘It’s like she knows seven words and four of them are ‘cute.’’ “Maya, is there anything that isn’t cute? Bugs are cute. Babies are cute. Puppies are cute. Dimples. Shoes. Band-Aids. Rats. Anything?” Kat knew Maya had mastered the back-handed compliment. Calling something ‘cute’ didn’t mean she valued it. Maya’s use of ‘cute’ was nuanced. Maya assessed Kat’s response. She had deflected from the ‘cute bike’ to the use of ‘cute’ itself. She parried. “What I mean Kat, it’s not like a real bike. But more like a toy bike.” Maya...
Hard to Accept
The office is pretty dull, well, dull by tech company standards. We have a foosball table in the canteen but the I.T. guys hog it. No wonder the ticket queues are so long to get anything fixed around here. The food in the canteen looks likwww.onedoor.cce it’s fancy from the menu. In reality, the big guns moved the contract to that huge American, evil company that gave maggots to prisoners and tinned tomatoes to the poor folks in Direct Provision calling it “soup”. They fill the menu with words like “gourmet”, “succulent”, and “zesty” but the vegan lasagna has cow’s milk and my coeliac colleague has never fe...
To the Town, To the Swings
Sol needed time to think. Recently, too much of her life had absorbed a precarious instability, and her downloaded nature soundtrack couldn’t stop her mind from pinballing. She broke her routine that morning, foregoing herbal tea and podcasts for fresh air and real-life waves. She toed on her faded, striped flip flops, grabbed her keys, and shoved them into her the pocket of her once dark-blue jeans. As she closed the door behind her, she ran her fingers over the weathered, wooden surface and heard her dad admonish her for the grooves and flakes. She promised herself she’d paint it tomorrow—th...
Cheesy Rider
“Armand, I make the BEST grilled cheese sandwich that you will ever eat” said Vince as he sipped his coffee. “How do you know it’s the best?” Armand looked skeptical, “It’s just bread and cheese, right?” “Yes”. “Anything else?” “Well butter. But I use good cheese and I like to use French bread from the bakery”. “So that’s the big secret, good bread, good cheese and butter? Anyone could make that. My cat could probably make that if I put the ingredients in a panini maker he could press the lever and voila, the greatest grilled cheese ever”. “And …my super-secret ingredient” smirked Vince. “W...