Tag Archives: awkward

Odd Man Out

joes

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

For a chain, Joe’s Crab Shack had lots of personality. It fit how Mickey saw the life he used to live. Now he had bigger problems, his co-workers.

“Hey, there he is,” shouted Nate waving him over to their table. “About time you got here.”

He sucked up his nerve and tried to look confident walking over to them. He’d always avoided these “team building” meetings before because they all had one thing in common; booze.

“Here.” Laurie handed him a beer as he sat down.

“Just a Coke,” he nodded to the waiter. He was starting a new life.

Continue reading →

An Unrequited Life

depression

The dance lessons were not working. He’d let Jeremy and Terri talk him into taking jazz dance and it worked out exactly like the yoga lessons, the tennis lessons, and the single, miserable trip to the ice skating rink. Conrad remembered sitting on the ice, nursing his bruises, when a little girl no more than five effortlessly zipped up to him and said, “It’s okay. I fell a lot when I was first learning, too.”

He never went back, and he would never go back into that dance studio again.

“Face it, Conrad. If it’s athletic or physical, you suck at it.”

“Hey, give it a chance.” Jeremy was trying to be encouraging. He had met Jer and his girlfriend Terri in English Lit and the three became fast friends, but they were so much different from Conrad.

“Sorry. I’m going home. See you tomorrow.” Before they could object, he opened the door of his VW Bug, slid in the driver’s seat, and started the engine.

It was a beige ’72 Beetle, and he was so much like it. Simple, easy to maintain, and non-descript.

Continue reading →