It was the microwave that got me.
Sitting there in the break room, black and blocky as it displayed those offending digits: 0:12
I turned to my coworkers.
“Who left time on the microwave?” came my question.
They looked up from their phones and their notepads and their shitty novels and mumbled deviations of the words, “Not my fault,” with absurdly noncommittal nocommittalness.
My hand trembled, sloshing coffee up the sides of my World’s Best Pity Date mug as if the drink was doing a charade of the boss’s indigestion.
“Who, the fuck, left time on the microwave?”
“Come on, man,” the fat one who’s name escapes me said. “Just press cancel.”
“Right,” said that person who looked like me and sounded like me. “Press cancel. Because it makes so much sense to be unspecific with your time and press cancel, then to be ACCURATE?! And CONSIDERATE?! Answer the question, Roger!”
Apparently his name was Roger.
“My name’s not Roger,” not Roger said.
“FUCK YOU! JUST FU—”

Yeah.

Maybe it wasn’t just the microwave.