I signed my first lease when I was 17 with a man far too young in the head for me. Fresh out of high school and chock full of foolish ambition. A know-it-all complex.

I got a job at Applebee’s in Times Square and then the gym and now Jennifer where I hate my job. I realize now that these shitty jobs are all that is out there if you are uneducated unless you are extremely lucky. Having institutions stand behind your intelligence is more impressive then the army of references from equal educational stratum as yourself.

Tonight while riding the train back to Brooklyn to pick up the love of my life, Mr. Crocker, I was innocently doing my crossword when the obnoxious chitter chatter of completely brainless girls interrupts me. I desperately tried to concentrate, but couldn’t. They moved so that they right in my view.

“I can’t help that I’m chipper at my job. I mean my job sucks but that doesn’t mean that I make my life miserable by thinking about it. I mean if you wake up in the morning with a head ache do you turn around, and like, say ‘OMG I hate to take an Advil?!’”

I’m noticing that she’s not looking at her friend, just glancing to make sure she’s listening and not follow her eyes. Continuing in this chipper voice as if she’s figured out this great riddle of life: “I mean, I have my family, I have my friends, and I have a roof over my head. Yeah, I fold sheets for 6 hours but that doesn’t mean the end of my life because I hate folding sheets? Does it? I mean I still have a great life.”

Until the folding sheets part I almost felt like I wanted to clap and then I realized that she is probably just a drifting college kid who’s being supported. I thought maybe she was doing something in the real-non-sheet-folding-world. “Really, I have a great life.”

The entire time she’s looking at herself in the reflection in the window of the train. My concealed applause were u-turned into a dead on vicious. “You fake,” I think to myself. Be honest with yourself at least.