George sat in the driver’s seat of his car; everything was a blank from the moment he left Bess’s office to the moment the car door closed. His only regret was not being attentive enough as he walked out to validate his cartoonish impressions of the office staff; there was no going back inside now though. He placed his hands on the steering wheel, and pressed down on the gas, but instead of the familiar, delayed lurch forward from his ten year old compact, there was nothing. A quick shot of panic filled George’s chest before he realized that the car was still in park; he grabbed the gear shift, but it was locked in place: the car wasn’t even turned on. George needed to reset, to get things back in order. He got out of the car, stretched, shook his arms and legs, thought can birds live on Doritos alone?, got back in the car, put his seat belt on, put one hand on the steering wheel , started the car, put the car in drive, put his other hand on the steering wheel, and pushed down on the gas; finally escaping the parking lot.
Hey, what’s up?
I quit my job.
The extended silence led George to pull the phone away from his ear to check the status of the call.
You did what?
I quit my job.
Why? I mean, you haven’t talked to me about this at all. What are we going to do for money? My job can’t sustain us and all the bills and everything we have to buy for the girls. What are we going to do about money?
I’ll figure something out. We’ll be all right for a few months with my savings.
How much do you have in savings? How can you be sure that’s going to be enough? What if something major comes up and we have to use your savings for that? What if you don’t find a job before your savings runs out?
We’ll be all right. We can go over the financials tonight, so we have a better understanding of where we’re at.
I hope so. I wish I could quit my job like that. You know I’ve been talking about how much I’d like to stay home with the girls. Anyway, what happened?
I don’t know.
What do you mean, you don’t know?
I mean, I don’t know, I just, I showed up for work and I couldn’t do it anymore, I couldn’t go to that job anymore.
So, what did you do? You just walked in and told Bess you quit?
Not exactly, I had this whole spiel…
You had a spiel? So you were planning this? Why didn’t you say anything to me about it?
I didn’t know I was going to go through with it, if I knew for sure I was going to go through with it, then I would have talked to you about it, but, I just decided on my way in, I just couldn’t do it anymore.
But if you had a spiel then you were planning for longer than just this morning.
Yeah, I had been thinking about it for a long time, but I didn’t think until this morning that I would go through with it.
What time this morning?
I don’t know what time. Some time this morning.
Why didn’t you talk to me about it before you went to work?
Because it was after I left for work but before I got to work. Come on, if at any point I knew I was serious about it, before I went to work, I would have talked to you.
So what happened?
I don’t know, I went to Bess’s office first thing, like before I went to my office, and I was going to give her this well-thought out, articulate, resignation, but I sat down weird, and then I couldn’t start thinking about how nobody was in the front office and those things kind of threw me off, and I just started rambling.
You sat down weird? What does that even mean?
I sat down without taking my bag off or putting my coffee down, so my bag was like wedged in between my leg and the chair and it was hovering over my crotch like I was trying to hide a boner. And then I didn’t know what to do with my coffee so I just left it in my hand.
That is weird.
I know.
Ok, so, anyway, what did you say?
That’s what I mean, I don’t know.
How could you not know, you just said it what, twenty minutes ago?
Yeah, it’s just kind of blurry. It was just a lot about how I couldn’t sit in the office for thirty years and there’s never enough work to do and all the crazy things James has said to me and how I lied during my interview.
Wow, so you really went for it huh?
Yeah, I guess so, and it ended with Bess telling me to go see a doctor. All I said was thanks.
Did you cry?
What? No, why would I cry?
I don’t know, seems like a pretty intense situation, for some reason I default to crying when I get overwhelmed. I probably would’ve started crying.
I guess I did have a moment when I thought I should have cried. I mean, I had the thought, should I be crying right now, I’m overwhelmed. But I didn’t, that would’ve only made it worse. I think that counts though, I was basically crying without the tears. My words were my tears.
What are you a robot? Based upon my calculations I should currently be expressing my emotions in the form of tears. System failure. No algorithm for tears. I have no tears. I am overwhelmed. My words are my tears. That doesn’t count; you have to cry actual tears.
Ok, well by that definition I didn’t cry then.
You should have cried.
Look, I agree with you, we just disagree with the definition of crying.
You’re on your way home now? What are you going to do? You should start looking for a job today.
Yeah, I’m on my way.