“Shit,” I say aloud, and decide to ankle the teeth brushing. Instead I pour myself some coffee and dart back to the couch, flipping open my laptop. “Come on come on come on,” I chant under my breath when I get the spinning rainbow wheel. Moira is going to be furious.
Finally my MacBook comes to life. I immediately go on IM.
MoiraPoira (7:01:33): WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN??
Alex182 (7:01:35): I’m really sorry! I overslept.
MoiraPoira (7:01:44): Molly was the only one of you lot online on time this morning. So I gave her the first post of the day.
MoiraPoira (7:02:15): Sometimes I think she’s the only one of you girls who really cares about this job.
Alex182 (7:02:28): It won’t happen again.
MoiraPoira (7:03:12): It best not. I’ve sent you a bunch of links. Choose one and have something for me by 8:30. If you’re a minute late filing, Molly gets your next post slot.
Alex182 (7:03:34): Roger that.
Damn brown-nosing Molly. Of course she was there to pick up my slack. I know I really shouldn’t be mad at her—she’s just doing her job, and I’m the one who screwed up—but I’m furious. Since the traffic pressure started, Moira’s been emphasizing our constricted budget; she’s made it very clear that no one is going to get promoted unless someone else quits—or gets canned. It really feels like Molly is deliberately trying to make me look bad so she can squirm her way up the ladder.
My laptop feels extra hot against my bare legs and all I want to do is rinse the Coney Island grit off my body, but I need to churn out at least one post before I can move from the couch. I click through Moira’s links.
There’s a story about a high school in Tallahassee, Florida, where ten girls in the tenth-grade class are pregnant. We wrote about those knocked-up teenagers when the story first broke two weeks ago. A reporter named Marti Grimes at the Tallahassee Democrat had written an article on the “Tallahassee Ten,” and Tina had linked to the story and provided some clucking commentary about the pathetic state of sex education in some of our school districts.
The story was big news for a day or so but then receded. It generally takes the major news networks a week or two to pick up on these Internet firestorms, and so last night Diane Sawyer put on her best concerned expression and talked to some of those preggo fifteen-year-olds on ABC World News . I predict the Lifetime made-for-TV movie about the Tallahassee Ten will hit your cable listings in approximately six months.
I watch the clip online. “I’m pregnant, so what?” one of the girls asks the camera defiantly, her bulbous belly pushing out over the top of her too-tight jeans. “So was my mom when she was my age. And I turned out fine.”
Diane Sawyer cocks her head to the right, purses her lips, and says nothing.
I throw the clip up with a headline, “The Tallahassee Ten: ‘I’m Pregnant, So What?’” and manage to write two hundred desultory words describing Diane Sawyer’s immobile face and the pregnant girl’s churlish yet sort of inspiring attitude. Part of me admires her unwillingness to be shamed, even in the face of all that straining Botox.
Ten minutes later, the comments on the post are mixed. Most of them are about the sorry state of sex education in the Bible belt. A regular commenter with the handle Shananana says, “If only these girls had Depo shots this stuff would never happen.” The normally churlish Weathergrrrl is even supportive. “You should publish things like this more often.”
The room starts to seesaw right after I’ve read the first handful of comments, and I run to the bathroom, thinking that I might hurl.
I don’t puke, but I do spend several minutes lying with my face against the cool tile floor, trying to decide if I should go to Breaking the Chick Habit when I can force myself into an upright position again. I weigh the pros and cons. Pro: I won’t be able to stop
Finally my MacBook comes to life. I immediately go on IM.
MoiraPoira (7:01:33): WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN??
Alex182 (7:01:35): I’m really sorry! I overslept.
MoiraPoira (7:01:44): Molly was the only one of you lot online on time this morning. So I gave her the first post of the day.
MoiraPoira (7:02:15): Sometimes I think she’s the only one of you girls who really cares about this job.
Alex182 (7:02:28): It won’t happen again.
MoiraPoira (7:03:12): It best not. I’ve sent you a bunch of links. Choose one and have something for me by 8:30. If you’re a minute late filing, Molly gets your next post slot.
Alex182 (7:03:34): Roger that.
Damn brown-nosing Molly. Of course she was there to pick up my slack. I know I really shouldn’t be mad at her—she’s just doing her job, and I’m the one who screwed up—but I’m furious. Since the traffic pressure started, Moira’s been emphasizing our constricted budget; she’s made it very clear that no one is going to get promoted unless someone else quits—or gets canned. It really feels like Molly is deliberately trying to make me look bad so she can squirm her way up the ladder.
My laptop feels extra hot against my bare legs and all I want to do is rinse the Coney Island grit off my body, but I need to churn out at least one post before I can move from the couch. I click through Moira’s links.
There’s a story about a high school in Tallahassee, Florida, where ten girls in the tenth-grade class are pregnant. We wrote about those knocked-up teenagers when the story first broke two weeks ago. A reporter named Marti Grimes at the Tallahassee Democrat had written an article on the “Tallahassee Ten,” and Tina had linked to the story and provided some clucking commentary about the pathetic state of sex education in some of our school districts.
The story was big news for a day or so but then receded. It generally takes the major news networks a week or two to pick up on these Internet firestorms, and so last night Diane Sawyer put on her best concerned expression and talked to some of those preggo fifteen-year-olds on ABC World News . I predict the Lifetime made-for-TV movie about the Tallahassee Ten will hit your cable listings in approximately six months.
I watch the clip online. “I’m pregnant, so what?” one of the girls asks the camera defiantly, her bulbous belly pushing out over the top of her too-tight jeans. “So was my mom when she was my age. And I turned out fine.”
Diane Sawyer cocks her head to the right, purses her lips, and says nothing.
I throw the clip up with a headline, “The Tallahassee Ten: ‘I’m Pregnant, So What?’” and manage to write two hundred desultory words describing Diane Sawyer’s immobile face and the pregnant girl’s churlish yet sort of inspiring attitude. Part of me admires her unwillingness to be shamed, even in the face of all that straining Botox.
Ten minutes later, the comments on the post are mixed. Most of them are about the sorry state of sex education in the Bible belt. A regular commenter with the handle Shananana says, “If only these girls had Depo shots this stuff would never happen.” The normally churlish Weathergrrrl is even supportive. “You should publish things like this more often.”
The room starts to seesaw right after I’ve read the first handful of comments, and I run to the bathroom, thinking that I might hurl.
I don’t puke, but I do spend several minutes lying with my face against the cool tile floor, trying to decide if I should go to Breaking the Chick Habit when I can force myself into an upright position again. I weigh the pros and cons. Pro: I won’t be able to stop
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