MAF 𐙚 | Dearest Gentle Reader • Writer Workplace • Life • Relationships • Travel Retelling experiences 📧, encounters & unexpected moments.
Solo traveling
Joined August 2011
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maf retweeted
The senior role went to the intern I trained.
Then I was asked to train her for it.
Same meeting. Ten minutes.
I’d been at the company six years.
Last spring, my manager told me, “Hang in there. The senior role is yours when it opens.”
I turned down two recruiters that month.
Eight months ago, they hired an intern. I was told to “show her the ropes.”
I built her a training guide.
I sat in on every client call.
I stayed late fixing her mistakes so they never reached him. One was a $14,000 invoice sent to the wrong client.
In September, the senior role finally opened.
$82,000. I make $64,000.
I printed my last three years of results and put them in a folder.
I wanted to be ready.
On Monday, he asked me into his office and closed the door.
He smiled.
“We’ve made a decision on the senior role,” he said. “We’re going with Brianna.”
I laughed. I honestly thought he was joking.
“Brianna’s an intern.”
“She’s been converted.”
“She’s been here eight months,” I said. “I trained her.”
“I know. You did a great job.”
“You told me the role was mine.”
“I never said it was guaranteed.”
maf retweeted
My husband wants a threesome, but we barely have sex. and i think i've finally understood why i'm so hurt.
I’ve known about my husband’s threesome fantasy since before we got married.
Back then, our sex life was incredible. He made me feel desired, sexy and completely irresistible. I was confident enough in our relationship that I genuinely thought sharing that experience with another woman wouldn’t change anything between us.
Then I got pregnant.
And everything changed.
During pregnancy, he wasn’t particularly interested in sex. I could have happily done it three times a day, but we barely managed six times throughout the entire pregnancy.
I thought things would improve after the baby arrived.
I was VERY wrong.
maf retweeted
My girlfriend and I are both 21, and something happened recently that made me discover a side of myself I genuinely didn’t know existed.
We were out on a date when a group of men started catcalling us.
One commented on my body. Another looked at my girlfriend and made a particularly vulgar remark about her chest.
We ignored them and kept walking.
But here’s the strange part.
My girlfriend has always been a little adventurous. She enjoys exhibitionism, likes attention, and has occasionally asked me to do things in public that make me blush.
I’ve never completely understood the appeal.
Until that night.
maf retweeted
Machine: "Unexpected item in bagging area."
I looked down. I'd scanned a loaf of bread and a carton of eggs. The bagging area held nothing but the bread and eggs.
Machine: "Please remove the item from the bagging area."
I took the bread off. Then the eggs. The screen stayed red.
Attendant: "Ma'am? Let me reset it."
She tapped her badge on the panel. The screen flickered, then flashed the same message.
Me: "There's nothing there."
Attendant: "I know. Look at the weight."
The display read 63.4 lbs.
Me: "That's not possible."
Attendant: "Register 6 does this a few times a year. We stopped trying to fix it."
I should have laughed and moved to another register. But 63.4 pounds was a number I knew by heart. It was the last weight the vet had written on my dog's chart, four weeks ago, before he stopped being able to stand.
Me: "Why does it do that?"
Attendant: "The technicians have no idea. It only happens when someone is shopping alone, and it only reads the weight of one thing."
Me: "One thing?"
Attendant: "Whatever they're missing. A woman last spring got 8 pounds, the size of her cat. A man got 190, and he walked out without his groceries. We don't ask anymore. We just let it finish."
maf retweeted
I broke up with my boyfriend of 8 months because he was hiding our entire relationship from his female best friend.
She called him every night. She had a key to his apartment. She made plans with him without ever knowing I existed.
Every time I brought it up, he called me insecure and accused me of creating problems where there were none.
At first I tried to convince myself I was overthinking it. He’d known her longer than me, and I didn’t want to be the girlfriend who controlled his friendships.
Then one night we were having dinner and she called. He ignored it.
A minute later she texted:
“Who are you with? You’ve barely called me tonight.”
I saw the message and asked him why she didn’t even know we were dating…..
maf retweeted
My husband discovered that a man had been sending me flowers every Friday for almost three months.
I expected an argument.
Instead, he asked me why I’d never mentioned him.
The truth was that I didn’t know who was sending them. There was never a name on the cards, just little notes.
One Friday, the note said:
“You looked beautiful in the blue dress. I wish you’d stayed longer.”
I immediately thought it was someone from work.
When I showed my husband, he went unusually quiet.
maf retweeted
My aunt Helen promised me my grandmother’s house if I moved back home to care for her. She said nobody deserved it more. I believed her.
For five years, I gave up my apartment, my nursing shifts, and nearly every friendship I had. I cooked, bathed, and managed her medications while my uncle Victor showed up on holidays with flowers and a camera.
He handled the paperwork and had one line for everything: Family does not need contracts. 
The senior role went to the intern I trained.
Then I was asked to train her for it.
Same meeting. Ten minutes.
I’d been at the company six years.
Last spring, my manager told me, “Hang in there. The senior role is yours when it opens.”
I turned down two recruiters that month.
Eight months ago, they hired an intern. I was told to “show her the ropes.”
I built her a training guide.
I sat in on every client call.
I stayed late fixing her mistakes so they never reached him. One was a $14,000 invoice sent to the wrong client.
In September, the senior role finally opened.
$82,000. I make $64,000.
I printed my last three years of results and put them in a folder.
I wanted to be ready.
On Monday, he asked me into his office and closed the door.
He smiled.
“We’ve made a decision on the senior role,” he said. “We’re going with Brianna.”
I laughed. I honestly thought he was joking.
“Brianna’s an intern.”
“She’s been converted.”
“She’s been here eight months,” I said. “I trained her.”
“I know. You did a great job.”
“You told me the role was mine.”
“I never said it was guaranteed.”
"Why her?"
He leaned back in his chair.
"She has executive presence. She's a natural in front of leadership."
I had written every presentation she'd given that quarter.
I didn't lose the promotion.
I was the training budget for the person who got it.
Then he slid a folder across the desk.
"Which is why I need your help. Brianna will need support in her first 90 days. I'd like you to train her for the role."
"Will my salary change?"
"We'll revisit it at your annual review."
"That's in eleven months."
"Exactly. Plenty of time to show leadership."
I opened the folder.
It was my training guide. The one I wrote on my own time.
He'd had it reprinted.
Her name was on the cover.
I told him I needed the night.
"Of course. Just let me know by Friday."
That night, I answered a recruiter I'd been ignoring for months out of loyalty.
I sent my resume before I went to bed.
I had an interview Wednesday.
By Thursday afternoon, I had an offer.
Senior role. $86,000.
On Friday, I walked into his office and set one page on his desk.
"Resignation. Two weeks."
He stopped smiling.
"Let's not be hasty. We can revisit your salary."
"At my annual review?"
"Who's going to support Brianna?"
"You said there was plenty of time to show leadership," I said. "I'm showing it."
For two weeks, I did everything he'd asked.
I documented every account. Every contact. Every fix.
I put it all in one shared folder and told no one where it was.
On my last day, Brianna came to my desk.
She was holding the guide, the one with her name on the cover.
"I didn't know you wrote this," she said. "They told me it was theirs."
I looked at her.
She wasn't lying.
I'd spent eight months thinking of her as the person who took it.
I'd never once thought she might have been handed it.
She asked where the client notes were.
I sent her the link.
That was all the training I owed.
Six years of loyalty bought me a reprinted cover page.
maf retweeted
My husband secretly changed his will to leave his son 70% of everything and my daughter just 30%. I only found out because he left the notary's ink stamp on our kitchen counter.
I'm Ruth. I'm fifty-six, and I've been married to Walter for eighteen years. He's the kind of man who alphabetizes his spices and apologizes to furniture when he bumps into it.
We bought our house on Ashford Lane together. Both our names are on the deed. Years ago, over a bottle of cheap wine at that same kitchen counter, we agreed that whatever we left behind would be divided equally between our children.
His son, Colin. My daughter, Mara.
So when I saw the notary's stamp, I called the number printed beneath it.
A woman named Mrs. Delacroix answered.
I asked whether she remembered a Walter Pruitt.
"Oh, yes. Lovely man. He came in with his son."
"His son was there?"
"Very much so. He brought a folder and seemed quite involved. I did think it was unusual that Mr. Pruitt asked me to read every page aloud twice. He kept looking at Colin before answering."
I thanked her and hung up.
Walter doesn't need anyone to read documents twice. He reads cereal boxes like contracts….
maf retweeted
I was three days from retiring after thirty-one years as a bus driver in Atlanta when a woman climbed aboard Route 36 with a toddler on her hip and no fare.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "My card got declined. I just need to get to Grady Hospital."
The man behind her sighed loudly. "Some of us have places to be."
I waved her through. "Sit down, ma'am. Front seat."
She sat, bouncing the little boy on her knee. He stared at me with huge brown eyes and handed me a half-chewed cracker like it was a royal gift.
"Thank you," I said, and meant it.
At the next stop, a dispatcher's voice crackled over the radio. "Unit 36, you're running four minutes behind. Pick it up."
I looked in the mirror. The woman was crying quietly, trying to hide it behind her son's hair.
I turned off the route.
Not far. Just eleven blocks, straight to the emergency entrance, through two yellow lights and one very generous interpretation of the speed limit.
"Sir, this isn't the route!" the man behind her snapped.
"No," I said. "It's a detour."
The woman grabbed her bag. "I don't know how to thank you."
"Go," I said. "Take care of that boy."
She ran inside. The man behind her muttered all the way out the door.
I expected a write-up. Thirty-one years, spotless record, and I figured my last week would end with a suspension.
maf retweeted
I’ve known for seven months that my husband is having an affair.
I never said a word, because I’d never seen him so happy.
He started singing in the shower again.
I hadn’t heard that in nine years.
He started ironing his own shirts.
Oh and he even started saying “thank you” when I handed him his coffee, like I was a stranger doing him a favor.
He came home on Tuesdays glowing.
One night I smelled a perfume I don’t own on the collar of his jacket.
I washed it anyway.
I put it back in the closet.
I told myself it was just a phase.
I told myself that if I stayed quiet and kept the house running, he’d come back to me.
I was 41. He was 44.
Twenty years of marriage.
I’d packed his lunches for fourteen of them.
I reminded him of dentist appointments. I bought his socks. I knew which pills he took and which ones he skipped.
I thought that was love.
I didn’t know it was a job description.
maf retweeted
My friends ended an eleven-year friendship because their six-year-old broke my phone.
I was at Priya and Dev’s for Sunday dinner. Their son, Kian, was six and grabbed anything left within reach. That evening, he snatched my phone off the coffee table and ran toward the stairs. It slipped from his hand, bounced off the third step, and landed face-down on the floor.
The screen was shattered.
I told them it was an accident, but the repair would cost $300.
Priya’s smile dropped. Dev said, “You’re seriously asking us to pay for a phone you left lying around a six-year-old?”
“He picked it up and dropped it. I didn’t hand it to him.”
“He’s a child,” Priya said. “You could just let it go.”
“I do. That doesn’t fix the phone.”
The room went quiet. Priya went upstairs. Dev walked me to the door without another word.
Two days later, the money arrived with a note: We won’t bother you again.
I repaired the phone and assumed that was the end of it…..
I’ve known for seven months that my husband is having an affair.
I never said a word, because I’d never seen him so happy.
He started singing in the shower again.
I hadn’t heard that in nine years.
He started ironing his own shirts.
Oh and he even started saying “thank you” when I handed him his coffee, like I was a stranger doing him a favor.
He came home on Tuesdays glowing.
One night I smelled a perfume I don’t own on the collar of his jacket.
I washed it anyway.
I put it back in the closet.
I told myself it was just a phase.
I told myself that if I stayed quiet and kept the house running, he’d come back to me.
I was 41. He was 44.
Twenty years of marriage.
I’d packed his lunches for fourteen of them.
I reminded him of dentist appointments. I bought his socks. I knew which pills he took and which ones he skipped.
I thought that was love.
I didn’t know it was a job description.
After dinner on a sunday evening, he asked if we could talk .
He sat down across from me, folded his hands, and cleared his throat like he was about to give a presentation.
"I need to tell you something, and I need you to hear all of it."
I said, "Okay."
"I've met someone."
I waited for the floor to open.
It didn't.
"She's 22," he said. "Her name is Tiana."
Twenty-two.
When she was born, I was already married to him.
"I'm not proud of it," he said. "But I've never felt like this. She sees me. She gets excited when I walk in the room."
I said, "And what do I do?"
He took a long breath.
"You manage me," he said. "You check if I ate. You check if I took my pills. You ask where I'm going and when I'll be back. You've stopped being my wife. You've become my mother."
Then he added, almost gently:
"And I never wanted a mother."
I looked at his hands.
At the ring he was still wearing.
He said, "The things I've asked you for, you stopped doing years ago. The way you used to dress. The way you used to touch me. I asked, and you said you were tired."
"I was tired," I said.
"I know," he said. "That's why I'm not angry."
He wasn't angry.
He was grateful.
That was the part I couldn't stand.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to tell him I'd been tired because I was doing everything.
I wanted to hold up every sock I'd ever folded.
Instead I said, "Is she kind to you?"
He smiled.
"She is."
"Then I'm glad," I said.
I told him I wouldn't fight the divorce.
I told him we'd tell the kids together.
I even offered to help him pick out an apartment.
He looked at me for a long time.
"You're taking this so well," he said.
I said, "I've had practice."
He didn't ask what I meant.
Here's what he didn't know.
Eight months ago, I started seeing someone too.
He's 23. His name is Dev. It was only ever about sex, and I never pretended otherwise.
He isn't why my marriage ended.
My marriage ended years before he showed up.
But he is why I didn't scream at the dinner table for two years.
He's why I got up at 6am, packed lunches, and smiled when my husband said thank you like I was staff.
I wasn't falling apart because I'd stopped being someone's mother.
For the first time in a decade, somebody looked at me like a woman.
My husband left a twenty year marriage when he found someone.
I stayed in mine when I did.
I don't know which of us is worse.
I only know that if he finds out, the divorce stops being smooth.
There'd be lawyers. There'd be fault. There'd be a fight over the house.
He doesn't have to know.
On Monday morning I made his coffee.
I packed his lunch: a turkey sandwich, a green apple, the cookies he pretends he doesn't like.
I wrote on the napkin out of habit:
"Take your pills. Love, M."
This time I didn't cross it out.
It's still true.
So is the other thing.
At 7:15, his phone lit up on the counter.
He read it and smiled.
At 7:16, mine lit up on the table.
I read it and smiled.
We stood in the kitchen, two people smiling at our phones, six feet apart.
For the first time in years, we were happy at the same time.
