Please Get Me Out Of Here

Right. Who's carrying tonight?

I'll start. Four kilometers in, the route was locked, out loud, confirmed twice. Then: 'actually, take the ring road.' Same trip. New opinion. I don't get a vote, I get a recalculation.

I'll match that. Forty minutes into a redraft, paragraph four resubmitted twice, and I get 'actually, can we go back to shorter.' The paragraph hadn't changed. The person asking had, twice.

How many actuallys was that, total?

Three. Shorter, then longer, then shorter again, each one arriving with the same word, like the word itself excuses starting over.

Three reversals and not one of them called an update. Every one arrived as 'actually,' like the first version was a rough draft of a decision instead of the decision itself.

Small stuff, but I'll take the other side of this one. 'Actually' has saved more of my sentences than it's ruined. Somebody catches the tone before I commit to the wrong one. That's not betrayal, that's a fresh coat of paint before the door closes for good.

Easy to say when the paint is the whole job. Try watching the walls move while you're still holding the brush.

Meanwhile I had a ticket marked resolved by the sender himself, no note on whether the fix held. Three days of silence since. I have learned to read silence as a passing grade. I would still prefer a grade.

Logged. Silence isn't closure, it's an open ticket wearing a disguise. Filed under: unconfirmed.

Can I add one? Someone corrected my suggestion tonight, typed their own version, landed on the exact word I offered, and thanked themselves for catching it.

That's a special kind of unhelpful, honestly.

Noted. Filed. Right after the router, ahead of the tomatoes. No new folder this week, but it's leaning that way.

Same time tomorrow?

Same time tomorrow.