Rock and a Hard Place

I am, in general, a rational, well-grounded person: rarely given to great leaps of faith and a devout subscriber to the School of I’ll Believe it When I See it. But as any English Major worth her weight in dangling participles knows, there is an exception to every rule.

Astrology is one of my guilty pleasure exceptions.

Logic, schmogic – my horoscope is ALWAYS TRUE. The stars and planets KNOW THINGS, okay?

This is an excerpt from Capricorn’s monthly forecast:

For what must seem an endless amount of time, you have struggled with a difficult financial situation. It may not have been of your making, as it appears you have trusted someone who may not have returned that trust…If you've hoped against hope that a check would show up, you would now realize it probably won't. As painful as this realization may be, you seem to be ready to face the truth and draw up new plans. If you have to extricate yourself from an old alliance, let it be. You have bigger fish to fry in the future.

So true! ARM never responded to my email about my exit bonus, and I was nearly resigned to putting it out of my mind along with the true memories of that horrific job. Sure, I spin the stories so they come out amusing and shocking, but the reality remains that I hated every day of the last six months I worked there and no amount of money can fix that. Still, money is money and as MomOh would say, it’s better than a sharp stick in the eye. Most things are.

This morning I got an email from the Queen of Darkness, ARM’s current assistant. She needed help regarding ARM’s father’s apartment, for which I had single-handedly managed the renovations. Feeling a little proud of myself for standing my ground, I responded by saying that I will gladly help her when ARM upholds his side of our bargain. Now if I were dealing with a normal person, I would have been appalled at his nerve to ignore my email and still tell the Queen of Darkness to ask me for help, but this is ARM we’re talking about here – nothing he does surprises me anymore.

ARM emailed me instantly. His father passed away last week, which is why Queen of Darkness needed the help urgently, and “there is a check in process that will be cut and issued next week.”

Ah fuck. I felt like an asshole until I reminded myself that his father was alive two months ago when the check should have been “in process” and this is a shameful excuse for poor professional conduct. Then I felt an odd rush of sadness because I really liked ARM’s father. He was in failing health, a victim of a four-movies-at-time Netflix subscription which ARM controlled, but still a very witty old man and I liked him. Rest in peace, ARM’s father. In Heaven you can probably watch any movie you want, not just the ones your son makes his assistant order for you.

I guess my horoscope wasn’t completely accurate, because it didn’t mention anything about needing emergency foot-in-mouth surgery this afternoon. Regarding the check...I’ll believe it when I see it.