The Creative Nest

I sent an email at 9:14 on a Tuesday. Short. Two questions, both of them answerable in a sentence. I got a reply at 4:47 that began with *Hi*, and then told me about a meeting that happened in March. Not a long reply. It wasn't that kind of dodge. It was maybe four sentences, all about budget cycles and timelines, and not one word about either of my questions. I read it twice to be sure I'd understood. I had. The questions were simply gone, replaced by something adjacent and cheerful. So I wrote back. I said, politely, just circling on my two questions below, pasted them again underneath like an offering. She replied Thursday. This time she said *sorry for the delay* and then told me the timeline she thought we were on. Which was a timeline. From someone else. On a different project. I have now sent four emails. Each one shorter than the last, not because I have less to say but because the length of the thing is what's wearing me down. Number four was basically a subject li...

I do pickup. Not because it's nice. Because the total at the end is smaller and I need every dollar of that savings to keep not happening. In store, I'm standing in the oil aisle holding a bottle of olive oil I'd never have bought, waiting behind a man with a cart full of things that are all on his list and none of them are on mine. He's reading the label on a bag of rice. I'm holding oil I'm going to return later, or at least move to the back of the fridge where it will live until it expires and then move to the back of the fridge again. Delivery is worse. The driver photographs my bag on the doormat like it's evidence, then it's out there all night getting rained on while I'm inside refreshing nothing. Pickup is curbside, which means I sit in the parking lot at 6:40 in the dark with my hazards on, watching a guy in a vest load bag number four into a car three rows over. The app says *Your shopper is on the way*. The app said that fourteen minutes a...

I have a question. When did tipping become something we are apparently expected to do everywhere? I feel like I blinked and suddenly the little tip screen followed me out of the restaurant and into every corner of my life. I understand tipping at a restaurant. Someone brings me food, keeps my drink filled, clears my dishes, and makes sure I don't have to get up every five minutes. Fine. I understand the arrangement. But lately, I feel like I need to be prepared to tip simply because I had the audacity to purchase something. I walked into a store, picked something off a shelf, carried it to the register myself, stood in line, waited my turn, and handed the cashier my money. The cashier rang it up, put it in a bag, and then spun that little screen around toward me with the tip options staring back at me. Eighteen percent. Twenty percent. Twenty-five percent. Excuse me? A tip for what? I did most of the work here. At this point, I would like a tip for successfully navigating the store...