Boxed In

ILLUSTRATION by BOB AUL

My life changed the moment you walked into the cubicle adjacent to mine. And a funny thing about cubicles: they’re not offices. We shared the same air, without doors or privacy, day after day for more than a year. Meanwhile, you continued to share the most intimate details of your life, details that no one else wanted to hear, with all your fellow cubes. Not only that, but you broadcast them on your incessant telephone conversations at such an extreme volume that even earplugs could not keep your ridiculous life from encroaching on my concentration. I will never forget the stories regarding the heavy flow of your menstrual cycle, why you chose one brand of birth control over the others, the sordid tales of your mother and sister-in-law that easily rivaled the backstabbing on any daytime soap, or the constant bickering between you and your spouse. Despite it all, the definitive story of our time together has to be that of your new purse, a story detailing how the love of your life urinated and defecated in your purse in a drunken stupor. Next time? Keep it to yourself.

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