I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

Author:Sloane Crosley
Language: es
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9788477652724
Publisher: Circe
Published: 2009-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

SIGN LANGUAGE FOR INFIDELS

I don’t remember exactly how long I was in that tiny, overheated room. My presence there began on a road not so much paved with good intentions as sporadically littered with them. It was my first, and likely last, volunteer gig. Being blessed with one or two thoroughly selfless friends, I can say with a solid degree of authority that I am a selfish person. I spontaneously forget the names of more people than not, unless I want to make out with them. I will take the last square of toilet paper off the roll without thinking twice. I tip taxi drivers so poorly I’m amazed none of them have run over my foot while speeding off. Once I became so annoyed at a boyfriend’s excessive use of my overpriced shea butter–based shampoo that I went out and bought him some Prell.

“You’re so considerate,” he said.

“Yes”—I clenched my teeth—“that’s true.”

I created something called the Good Intention Construction Co., a mental exercise meant to repair and beautify an otherwise broken and bland life. It’s not a real company in the fact that it doesn’t file taxes or order binder clips and it’s entirely in my head. It’s what pops up occasionally like an appointment on an electronic calendar when I become morally lethargic. Which is often. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

What happened was that just after graduation, I and some of the people I knew were contemplating our circumstances. Our circumstances being poorly paid jobs if we worked in the arts, two hours of sleep if we worked in money, and a newfound sense of intellectual inferiority if we worked in publishing. We were disillusioned by day and deglamorized by night. Our apartments, our love lives, the bar-slash-lounges we waited on line for. They all seemed smaller than we thought they should be. Eventually it hit a saturation point, all of us standing there in our nice shoes with our full stomachs and glossy lips—all the better to complain with, my dear. We needed some perspective, or I know I did. And so I closed my eyes and went to the Good Intention Construction Co. and saw that a ticker with a single phrase ran around the building’s exterior: GO FORTH AND VOLUNTEER.

Being as selfish as I am, I wasn’t sure this was the best prescription. I closed my eyes again, hoping if I shook my head, my brain would refresh itself like an Etch A Sketch or a Magic 8 Ball. Alas, the same message popped up. But where would I volunteer? I am not globally conscious by nature, and find people who publicly strive to make the world a better place to be moderately annoying. I resent it when they laud their worthwhile hobbies over me. I resent them opening mountain climbing supply stores in urban areas. I resent them brandishing clipboards and petitions on the sidewalk and the not-kicking of puppies. I never understood it. “Do unto others” (along with “a penny saved is

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.