Jennifer Fliss

I am alone.

Chick-fil-A is at it again. This time they’re out to help. Honestly. They’ve rolled out a new service, the Mom’s Valet. Moms can order their food via the drive-thru and then go inside the fast-food restaurant, where a table will be ready, complete with high chairs and booster seats, and then have their food brought to the table by an employee. The program isn’t implemented by their corporate office yet, but has been rolled out in over 100 Chick-fil-A outlets.

Invite friends over. They should be attractive, but don’t have to be.

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You held a cap gun to my head on the bus ride home from school, threatening to shoot me, day after day. I know you couldn't have known that I had something similar happening at home.

Here’s the thing: I have benefited greatly from reading stories from others, the daring narratives of those who have histories similar to my own. We feel more human when we hear that other humans relate to an experience we maybe thought was our very own private hell.

On a dark rainy night, when our toddler was asleep, he set up Star Wars: A New Hope — who knew that was what it was called? — on the laptop. I, with a skeptical brow, cozy blanket, and my phone (in case boredom struck)...

It is the denigrating soundtrack of a breast pumping session. You, sitting at its mercy. It, just taking and taking.

A photo of your long-dead cat, Milo, in a brass Easter egg-shaped frame. Oh, sweet animal, I miss your furballs, you think when you hang it on a low branch. Milo had an uncanny ability to hork on laps when unwanted visitors overstayed their welcome.

I don’t think you meant well. You wanted to vomit your discontent to the world. Isn’t that embarrassing? Or is it like a seven-cocktails-and-two-shots kind of vomit?