On my way home from work I stop at the grocery store to pick up a few essentials. A woman entranced with her phone rolls to a stop with her grocery cart sideways in the middle of the aisle oblivious to the traffic jam she's created.

"Excuse me."

No response.

I raise my volume a notch or two. "Excuse me."

She's in an invisible impenetrable bubble. I turn and make my way down the aisle in the opposite direction.

When I round the corner, a guy wearing Star Wars pajama pants and a Bojack Horseman t-shirt stares blankly into a freezer case. It's as though he's expecting one of the frozen pizzas on the shelf to summon him.

An unattended three-year-old kid with no shirt shrieks as he races down the intersecting aisle, throwing his little arms around like a savage on peyote. There are no parents or guardians in view. It's no wonder that the grocery store offers a blood pressure machine for shoppers. I need to get out of here.

At the check-out, I place my carton of milk, bag of pretzels, Pop-Tarts, and shampoo on the conveyor belt. The cashier, a thin middle-aged person with thinner hair, makes eye contact only with his phone and with my purchases.

"That'll be twenty-seven eighty-three," he mumbles mechanically, pushing his hair behind his ear. I insert my debit card into the reader. It BEEPS.

"Been doin' that all day," he sighs while bagging my overpriced goods.

I try again. Same result. BEEP.

While reaching for my wallet I joke, "I sure hate dipping into my crack money."

No acknowledgment from the cashier. He shoves the change and receipt into my hand and returns to his phone.

On my way out of the store, I notice that I'm surrounded by stone-faced people, shoppers and employees alike. No interactions. No smiles. It's like they're all impatiently waiting to die. Like it can't come soon enough.

######

At home, I unpack my bag on the kitchen table and relate my story to Megs. "A middle-aged guy in a suit. Do I look like a crack head?"

She shakes her head. "Every time, same thing. Why do you say things like that?"

"Just trying to brighten his day. Make a little joke. He didn't even smile. No reaction. Nothing."

"Maybe he doesn't want his day brightened."

"Why wouldn't you want your day brightened?!"

Megan shrugs. "You bought the wrong shampoo."

"Sorry. I wish someone would make a joke to me. You know, like maybe put a weird picture in my wallet."

"Weird picture?"

I present the torn paper with the photo of the chimp holding a dog on a leash. With a straight face, Megan replies, " That was in your wallet? That is very strange."

God, how I love this woman.

#######

After dinner, I retreat to my upstairs office to punch up the dreaded Trollamex document. I open my briefcase where the treasure trove of Trollamex files awaits me. The more I read, the more irritated I become. It's no wonder that this assignment was passed around like a hot potato at the office.

I feel eyes on me. It's Jillian dressed in her pajamas watching me from the doorway.

"Do you like your work?"

I put on a fake smile that she immediately detects as inauthentic. "It's okay."

"Seems kinda boring."

"I guess it is kinda boring."

"Then why don't you get a new job that isn't boring?"

"I might be getting a promotion soon. They'd pay me more money."

"So you really don't like it, but they give you a lot of money."

"I didn't say I didn't like it."

"You didn't say you like it."

My wife enters. "Okay, Jilly-bean. Let's let Daddy finish his work."

Jillian waves to me. I wave back then drop my head into my hands.

Megan asks, "What's the matter?"

"How'm I supposed to write corporate propaganda for these criminals?"

"You're good at it. You've done it a hundred times. Want some ice cream?"

"No, thanks."

She exits with no idea that her innocent remark devastated me. She's right. I have done this a hundred times. I wonder if there's any way I can talk my way out of burning in hell.

######

6:15. The alarm goes off.

6:40. I'm out of the shower. While brushing my teeth, I look in the mirror at the shell of a human being that I've become.

7:05. I select a necktie.

By 7:15, I'm dressed and staring at the toaster, waiting. When the Pop-Tart jumps up, it burns my fingers and I growl, "Agh!"

7:20. I kiss Megs on her soft cheek.

Ten minutes later, I'm a part of the swarm of traffic clogging the roadway. The digital clock on the dashboard jumps from 7:43 to 7:44. To my left are a driver and his passenger. The driver blathers into his iPhone. His passenger's texting thumbs are a blur on her Android. They're oblivious to one another.

I turn to my right to face a group of statue-like people standing at a bus stop. The same people probably see each other every single day. I bet they've barely spoken a word to one another. Probably don't know each other's names.

I lock eyes with myself in the rearview mirror and with resolve, I make a pledge. I refuse to be a party to this. Not me. Today will matter!

Twenty-three minutes later I enter the usual coffee shop taking a deep whiff of freshly-brewed coffee. Christopher, my familiar barista, says, "Phil. Que pasa?"

His outgoing personality may be only an affectation, but I appreciate him making the effort. He automatically opens the bakery case, focused on my usual blueberry muffin.

"Blueberry muffin and a regular coffee, right?"

I point to a row of muffins beside the blueberry. "You know what? I think I'll have that muffin."

"A bran muffin?"

"Looks good. And what's that coffee?"

"Flavor of the day. Hazelnut."

"Awesome. I'll have that."

"Bran muffin? Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Bran. I'm really shakin' things up today."

I turn to the young woman standing in line behind me. She looks at the floor.

Christopher hands me my coffee and bagged muffin. "That'll be six fourteen."

I pay him and start for the door. When I sip my coffee, my smile drops. "This coffee," I say. "Tastes like it's trying to be ice cream or something."

"That's the concept with flavored coffee. Flavors."

"Could I just get a regular?"

The young woman rolls her eyes.

######

9:12. I'm in the conference room with Carl. He's slouched in his usual seat but not me. I'm pacing. And it's not from the caffeine.

"Come in off the ledge, Phil."

"Every one of them performed the same kind of job, with the same chemicals, and they all died from the same cancer in the same parts of their bodies!"

"Sure, that's what it looks like."

I take another sip of my lukewarm coffee but I can't swallow my anger.

"Trollamex knew what was going on. And still they sold the stuff... Tiger's Teeth weed killer. I'm pretty sure that's what it was called." I flip through some pages.

Carl shrugs.

"We're a PR firm. We don't lie and cover-up issues like this." I toss the papers onto the table for dramatic effect.

Carl looks over the top of his glasses at me.

"Okay, maybe we do lie. A little."

"Define lie," says Carl.

"We lie about how sorry the CEO is when the company gets caught polluting a stream. Or we lie about how the city had no idea that the new highway ramp was gonna take out the church and the Senior Citizens' Center. But mostly we help these people explain to the public that they made a terrible mistake and that they're going to do the right thing to correct the situation. That's mostly what we do."

"Is that what you think we do?"

"We don't help them lie about giving their employees and customers cancer!" I plead, "Please tell me we don't."

"Nobody's expecting you to lie. We need a simple statement that we can operationalize."

I erupt. "Okay. How about this? Our CEO can't be with us today because he's sucking the blood out of newborn babies, but if he were here I'm sure he'd say "Drop dead every one of you. You'll never see a nickel from this company."

"Not a bad start. Could use a little polish."

"I can't do this, Carl. No wonder Bailey dropped it."

"Hell, if I'd known you were gonna stress about it, I'd given the damned thing to Stern. Happy now? It's not your problem anymore."

Carl gathers the Trollamex files from the table and tucks them under his arm.

"Turkey day is coming up, Phil. Long weekend. Relax. Drink. Eat. Get laid."

"What?"

He waddles out the door. Moments later, Bernie pokes his small head into the room and sighs.

"Now they expect me to do Williams' work. I am so out of here."

I take a bite of the bran muffin. Ugh. I spit out the chunk into a waste can then wipe my tongue with a napkin.

Another deep sigh from Bernie before he exits.

#######

It's dinner time. The best that two working parents can do is fast food: chicken strips for Jillian, a salad of some sort for Megs, and some bacon/cheeseburger sandwich for me that probably tasted a whole lot better when it was still hot. I know, pathetic, right?

"So you probably heard." Jillian dips her chicken strip into a cup of dressing.

Megan shakes her head.

"I got in trouble at school."

"You did?" I eye my daughter with concern.

"I said I didn't want to make the stupid turkey with the stupid hand outline."

"You didn't say stupid, I hope."

"No. But it is stupid. That's for babies. I'm seven years old. I know a turkey doesn't look like a kid's hand. Why does everybody think that looks so cute?"

Megan asks, "What did you want to draw?"

"A real turkey. The way they look in real life. But the teacher said no, we all had to draw the stupid little kid hand outline turkey. If it was kindergarten I'd say fine. But third grade?"

She dips her chicken strip again.

"She was making such a big deal out of it. Geez. I said you sound like a crazy person, not me."

I almost choke on my burger while trying my hardest not to laugh.

Megs, always the adult in the room says, "You know you shouldn't have said that, don't you?"

"Yeah." She bites into her chicken. "I'll be glad when Thanksgiving is over."