The Note Was Not That Funny

November sixth. By the end of the shift we were both running on the particular kind of tired where everything costs slightly more than you have, the kind where you measure out your remaining patience in increments of about four minutes each. We went to the break room at the same time without planning it, which happens more than you'd think at this point, and that's when Simone spotted the note.

Someone had left a sticky note on the espresso machine.

The inciting incident.

I won't repeat what it said because it genuinely doesn't matter, what mattered was the specific energy of it, the fact that someone had felt a feeling strong enough to require a yellow sticky note and a Sharpie and a slightly crooked placement slightly too high on the panel. Simone read it first and just made a sound. I read it and made a different sound. And then we both stood there in the fluorescent light, which is not flattering to anyone at the best of times, and completely lost it.

I don't know how long it went on. Long enough that Simone had to turn away because looking at me was making it worse.

Simone could not explain it either.

Long enough that when it finally stopped we were both wiping our eyes and neither of us could explain, to ourselves or to each other, what exactly had happened. The note was passive-aggressive in the most domestic, resigned, institutional way, the kind of note that has probably existed in every break room in the country at some point, in more or less the same handwriting, making more or less the same point. It was not funny. We just happened to be tired enough that funny and not-funny were occupying the same space.

I've been thinking about the pasta water thing still, the way eleven days of chewing on something can happen without you noticing you're chewing. This was the opposite, no chewing, no lag. Just the immediate, involuntary thing. We walked out of the break room without discussing it further, which felt right. Some things are exactly the size they are and don't need to be made larger. The note was funny. We laughed. We went home. I'm still a little tired.