Where's the Love?

"I've just landed a job in Chatham and I'm in Newcastle, oh my God! What am I gonna do?" Janice tosses her nail file onto the coffee table and falls back into the couch with a dramatic sigh.

"It'll be alright," I say. "Other people do it."

"But Cindy, it's all the way across the river, IN CHATHAM!"

I can tell she's getting set to work herself up into a real doozey of a fit, best to humour her. "Well, let's look at this logically," I say. Her face brightens and she sits up, leans closer, hopeful.

"You don't have any money, right?"

She nods.

"And the rent's due, right?"

"Yes," she says.

"And there's absolutely no food in the house, right?"

"Well, there are those crackers from Christmas," she says.

"Yeah, I'm not real sure they count. So, there's no food, right?"

She shrugs.

"So you need a job, right?"

"Well duh!" She rolls her eyes.

"And it just so happens that you've got a job, right?"

"Cindy! You're missing the point. It's in CHATHAM."

"Oh yeah, that's right. It's in Chatham. Well my dear, sizing things up from all angles, pros and cons, I can only see one solution."

"Well!" Janice cries. "What is it?"

"It's really quite simple, you'll just have to buy a helicopter."

"A helicopter! Cindy! For the love of God, be serious."

"I AM serious. Way I see it you need a helicopter if you're gonna work all the way on the other side of the river in Chatham . . . OK . . . there might be another way . . . and this is just a wild idea. It's kinda out there. But maybe, just maybe, it's just crazy enough to work."

"What?" she says, hopeful again.

"Well, if the helicopter thing falls through, and you know I really have high hopes for that, plans for the heli-pad on the roof all done up in my head . . . but on the off chance that it falls through, to save house and home and my stomach, well, you could . . . and I don't say this lightly, I know it'd be a sacrifice . . . but well . . . you could always . . . take a cab."

Mood: trying to get the tongue out of my cheek
Drinking: coffee, cold, instant, with skim . . . does it get any worse?
Listening To: Beautiful, Goldfrapp
Hair: the hair! the hair! always the freaking hair!