My Best Worst Day

A man wins the lottery and finds it to be his best worst day ever.

      These cars slither along at a f****n’ snail’s pace! What are all these people doing up at this hour? I wonder to myself. I’d rather be home in bed with Patty. Hell, I’d just be happy to be in bed.

      Horns blaze from behind me and I look up to see the light has changed to green. Again, a horn sounds and I wave a friendly finger and slowly accelerate. Some days, not all, but some days I like to pace myself just ahead of the car in the lane next to me, not allowing the horn blowers to get where they are going any faster than I do. Some would call me an instigator, but f**k ‘em�"I am the one who is in front!

      The next light turns yellow and the car to my right quickly accelerates. I try to match its speed but have to slam on the brakes.

      I can see the horn-blower quickly swerve into the right lane and stop next to me.

      I don’t want to look. I do!

      “F**k you Carl!” Tom yells through the windows as if I can hear him�"as if I want to hear him. God how I hate him! If I would have known it was him I would have blown through the red light. I look away trying to play cool, trying to pretend I am not me, but when I accidentally look his way, he mouths, “f**k you!” once more�"as if being told once isn’t enough. What an a*s!

      As the light turns green he floors the pedal of his old pick-up, which coughs up a thick cloud of blue-grey smoke. Another horn beeps from behind me�"once again I wave and continue onto the hospital.

      There are still many spots available in the employee parking lot, so I try to find one as far from Tom’s truck as I can. I throw open the door of my Taurus and feel in quickly make contact with the car next to me. While I can hope and wish that no damage is done, I quickly come to realize those wishes are not going to be answered. A long, deep, metallic gash is quite noticeable in the gloss black finish of the Tahoe in the stall next to me. Like a guilty dog that has just ransacked the garbage and is looking to see if its master is nearby, I look around the parking lot, slowly slide back behind the wheel of my car, start the engine and race my car to a different stall. This time I am far more cautious while opening the door and begin to make my way towards the employee entrance of the hospital.

      “A*****e!” Tom’s voice resonates from somewhere within the jungle of cars but I do not see him. Hell, I don’t even want to see him, so I swipe my maintenance badge and take the stairs down to the facility services offices to check in.

      “Hey Carl,” Donella says matter-of-factly as I walk into the office.

      “Morning Donella,” I reply with my best impression of cheerful, “Got the cleaning schedules ready for me yet?”

      “In the basket,” she replies, not for a moment even looking in my direction. I clock into work and begin making my way back out of the office when she calls back to me, “Oh, Carl, OB-GYN had a busy night last night. There were seven deliveries. Make sure you start there and make sure you empty the bio-hazard containers right away. Richardson established new protocols for that yesterday and from now on he wants them hand scrubbed first before we send them through the cleaners. Have fun!” she tried to end with a playful laugh.

      F**k my life! As a hospital janitor, I have seen some pretty nasty s**t in my days. I have had to clear the laundry chutes when they become jammed with soiled bed linens. I have had to hand scrub the garbage chutes in the old folk’s home when the Depends weren’t so dependable and painted the metallic walls with human feces. However, for me, there was nothing worse that suiting up in contamination suits and hand scrubbing the bio-hazard drums that were filled with bodily fluids and afterbirths�"and worst of all, this was the start of my glorious day.

      Again, f**k my life!

      I make my way to the bathroom to take the morning piss I hadn’t had time for before I left the house. The smell of s**t weighs heavily in the air�"fresh s**t. As I pull down my zipper and begin to drain my vein, the sound of a horrendous fart echoes through one of the stalls. My inner child wants to laugh out loud at the mysteriously funny sound, however the follow-up sound of splashing water makes be both nauseas and anxious to depart.

      “Jeeeeeee�"sussssss!” George yells out as he walks into the bathroom, “Who f*****g died in here? Carl? You do that?” There was something about him calling out my name that made me feel like a witness to a crime�"and the shitter was the perpetrator. There was no witness protection for s**t crimes. You know you know and the shitter knows you know. There is no hiding it now. If George wouldn’t have walked in, if George would have just kept his damn mouth closed I would have been in the clear, but not any longer.

      The sound of an empty toilet paper spool can be heard coming from the scene of the crime. Then, as if I were fortune’s fool, Tom’s voice growls out from the stall, “Someone hand me a roll of s**t paper!” Tom doesn’t ask, he just tells.

      F**k ‘em I thought to myself as I slid past Tom and out of the bathroom. Let George help him. Funny thing though, George actually is an a*****e, because no sooner do I walk out of the bathroom, George quickly follows�"without assisting Tom. We look at one another and George replies, “Don’t look at me…I thought he was talking to you!” He follows that with a laugh, riddled with a smoker’s cough and then makes his way back into the office.

     Now that my pipes are clean, I decide to stop up in the cafeteria for a coffee and roll before I make my way to the OB-GYN. I figure, hell, it’s on the way and I probably won’t wanna eat after I clean out the tubs.

      The cafeteria is filled with doctors, nurses, patients, family, friends, administrators, and numerous other people from all walks of life. A hospital is an interesting place and it is no wonder that soap operas and television shows seem to focus on them. So much is going on. Life, living, death and dying, all taking place under one room. It is circle of life in a rectangular building.

      I get in line and grab a coffee, cream, and two chocolate covered doughnuts. They are two for a buck because they are yesterday’s doughnuts, but I figure the coffee will moisten them up enough. Either that or wash them down. As I get to the Lynda to pay, I reach for my wallet and realize it is in neither pocket.

      F**k my life!

      “It’s okay darlin’,” Lynda says with a smile, “hit me up tomorrow, okay?”

      I feel small.

      It’s odd because I am not. Not at all. I am the big guy that others like to call tiny. I don’t know if they are being funny or only think they are being funny�"either way they are neither. You might as well just say what you mean instead of being so cryptic, well at least that is how I feel about it. I almost think I would rather hear, “Hey there, you’re a big f****r, aren’t ya?” than to hear, “Hey, Tiny!”

      Regardless, right now�"in this moment�"I feel tiny.

      “Thanks Lynda, musta left the wallet at home.”

      “Happens…” she says with a smile and a wink.

      I have ten minutes of morning break to use. Normally I don’t take break before I start work, especially now that I have clocked in, however cleaning those tubs is going to be a three or four hour job and that will take me past break. So, I sit down at a table with an abandoned newspaper.

      Hope the news isn’t so bad that they had to leave the paper, I think to myself.

      It is the same ole same ole. Someone is divorcing someone famous, someone at city hall is mad that someone else said or didn’t say something about someone who did or didn’t do something that someone else thinks they should’ve or shouldn’t have done when they were or weren’t suppose to have done or not done it. What’s happening in sports?

      Quickly I browse the scores and check the schedules as I wash the first doughnut down and then go to work on the second. I glance up at the clock and realize, despite my reluctance and procrastinations, I need to make my way OB. As I start to walk away, it hits me that it is Thursday morning and I have yet to check the lottery results from last night. I flip the pages back to the front and look for lottery results.

“6-4-19-32-34-12.” I can’t believe my eyes so I nervously read them again, this time aloud…”6-14-19-32-34 and 12.” The numbers jumped off of the newspaper. June 14^th, my birthday, December 19^th, Patty’s birthday. I am 34 and she is 32. They matched exactly.

“HOLY S**T!!! I WON!!!” I scream out like a giddy child. The cafeteria becomes silent and I can feel all eyes suddenly fixated upon me. HA@! What do I care---I won!!! I look again in a dazed disbelief and once again it is confirmed�"all numbers match. Just beneath the winning numbers, in bolded letters: Estimated payout for matching all six numbers exactly--$36Million. I am rich! I stinking, filthy rich! “Yessssssssssssssssss!!!” I scream out again.

“Excuse me sir?” a quiet, fragile voice from behind tears my attention from my mental flash-forward through my new life-to-be. She is a tiny old lady with thick glasses that magnify her old, seasoned eyes. Her face is caked with make-up, almost as if applied with a spackle to fill in the cracks and wrinkles upon her face; her hair more blue than gray. I can tell from her burgundy vest that she is a volunteer at the hospital and probably working the cafeteria for the first time because I have never noticed her until this very moment…a moment she will forever be a part of.

“Is there something I can help you with?” her voice cracks, almost as if she is tasked to deal with a madman in the middle of the café.

“No! No, thank you.” I can barely contain my excitement and want to scream even louder now…”I WON! I WON! I WON!” however, I instead take a long, deep, breath and again kindly respond, “I am fine.” It becomes harder and harder to contain my excitement, so I shove what is left of my stale doughnut into my mouth, take a final swig of my cold coffee , grab the newspaper, and with a mouth full of doughnut remnants, mumble. “Shank you berry much!”

The disgust on her face is obvious as I spray coffee drenched crumbs to the floor at her fee. I try desperately not to laugh and spit the rest all over her, however reality sets in and I ponder…”What the hell do I care what this ol’ bat thinks? I am freakin’ rich!” I quickly turn away and scurry out the double doorways and down the hall towards the maintenance elevators.

People with the corridor exchange courteous greetings and I politely nod in kind, but with no genuine interest. I reach forth and push the call button for the elevator, but my mind is already swimming.

Minions all. Someday they will all work for me.

“Sir, can I bring you some tea?”

“Sir, would you like the blue Mustang or the red one?”

“The Cobra or the Shelby?”

Naw…Mustangs are a ‘poor’ man’s sports car…a Ferrari! A candy apple red Ferrari with black letter seats!!

Soon, all of my dreams will come to fruition and no longer shall I find myself cleaning up after all of them. No, the days of me mopping bathroom floors and cleaning dirty toilets were over. I am no longer Carl the Custodian…no from here on out I will be addressed as Mr. Franklin.

The ding of the elevator’s arrival brings back to their world and I walk in quickly, almost before the doors have even opened the entire way. Fortunately it was empty or someone might have thought me to be an a*s…

As the polished aluminum doors close I can clearly see my reflection.

God, what a mess I am.

My stomach pulls the buttons of my powder blue work shirt quite taught. No wonder they make us wear safety glasses all the time�"I could take out someone’s eye if the button gives way. It has been days since I have last shaved and the stubble protrudes from my face like weeds in a garden. Every dark hair is partnered with a grey one it seems. If only the hair atop my head grew so freely.

First order of business…a make over!

Eh, f**k it�"I am rich, it is okay to be ugly when you are rich!

The elevators doors open and I step into the darkness of the basement. Although it is said heat rises, the basement of the hospital feels at least ten degrees warmer than that of the rest of the building.

This truly is Hell!

Ha! But today….yes today I will finally escape Hell. No, I won’t just escape Hell; I will walk out the front door and leave. It is easy to imagine the feeling of the sun upon my face, me basking in its rays. Not like this dark, gloomy, god-forsaken dungeon. The walls are made of concrete and bear the remnants of flaking, colorless, paint. Old pipes run the length of the hallway, disappearing into rooms and sprouting upwards like Jack’s beanstalk into the great unknown.

Walking the hallways I find myself peering into one room after another in hopes of finding someone to share the story of my new found fortune. Doc, the loading dock supervisor, is sorting through a plethora of boxes stacked twice as high as he stands. We know one another, but don’t really know one another, so telling him bears no real satisfaction. In the room across the hall I see Betty inventorying bottles of cleaning supplies and countless rolls of toilet paper. Ha, toilet paper. Sandpaper is more like it. My bathroom will be fully stocked with wet-wipes! Hell, maybe I will hire Betty to be head of janitorial services at my new mansion. Lord knows Patty won’t do it. S**t, she don’t do nothing as it is!

Well, I won’t tell Betty just yet. She is old and I don’t want to kill her with the excitement. I look ahead and see a light on in the workshop at the end of the hall. The term workshop is used lightly. It is more of a break room from which people hide from work. Conversation and gossip run amuck in that room. It is never uncommon to find six or seven identically dressed ‘workers’ discussing topics such as the weather, sports, women, management, and on a rare occasion…work!

Today, however, I would be the topic of conversation. I would walk into the room, and with the smuggest look I could muster I would say, “Well assmunches�"I am out of here!” Of course they would look at me with utter confusion. I would continue with telling them, “I won! I won and I am done!” Then just to leave them guessing I would walk out.

I would love to see the look on Kevin’s face.  Kevin didn’t like me either. He was Tom’s buddy and I never really like him either. I don’t know why really. Maybe it was because he didn’t like me first and I don’t like people not liking me!

However, Tom I would tell first. I will walk right up to Tom and tell him, “You know what Tom, you’re an a*s and I really don’t like you!” I am sure he knows I don’t like him; I am just not sure I have ever really told him so. Yeah, that will show him. I will say to him, “I have never liked you, Tom, and I don’t care that you don’t like me, because it just don’t matter. You know why it doesn’t matter Tom? I will tell you why. It is because I WON, Tom. That’s right a*****e I won! I won and I am done!”

At first I am sure he would have no idea what I am talking about. He would just stare at me with a stupid mean look on his face like he was somehow superior to me. So, I will make him wonder about it. I will make him sweat it out. He can think I am a fool�"but I know the truth. Eventually he would hear. Maybe then him and Kevin would consider liking me? Maybe they would see me and be like, “Hey Carl…buddy!” It would be to late though. I would be way too late, because now I don’t like them…and I never will. I would pretend to wave and then fly the one-finger salute!

I am excited and I have rehearsed the lines with each step towards the workshop door.

No one is here. The room is empty and only the faint sound of the radio, struggling to find a signal, can be heard from across the desolate work space.

S**t!

F**k ‘em! They will just have to figure it out when they read the paper tomorrow. The will open the paper and say, “Hey, I know that guy…that’s Carl!” They might say that, but I won’t be here to hear it.

I leave the workshop and take an immediate left down the next hallway. The first door on the right is the conference room and although the door is closed I can hear muffled voices on the other side. At first I feel a hint of fear, wondering if I missed a training day or shop meeting. Would I be in trouble?

“Wait!” I say aloud.

The door just past the conference room belongs to the director of facility services…Mr. Richardson! That is where I am going.

I am going to walk right in the door and tell him, “Richardson, I quit!”

Oh, there would be so much more I would want to tell him, but I don’t quite hate him as much as I do Tom. I am sure he would ask why, and perhaps wonder if it had to do with the bio-hazard containers. He may even wonder if I had them done yet. I am sure he would ask why, and I would throw down the paper on his desk and say, “Read ‘em and weep buddy!” I could actually call him buddy because he would no longer be my boss. Nope, he would just be some guy behind a desk�"a desk holding him in place like a four legged wooden anchor.

Richardson would probably look at me all confused and ask, “Read what?!?!” What is this all about Mr. Franklin?”

He always calls people by their last name. It is not the same kind of respectful Mr. Franklin I would soon be addressed by. No, this “Mr. Franklin” makes you feel smaller, weaker, and less important.  I hate it when he calls me Mr. Franklin.

So, I will probably reply to him, “Well Mr. Richardson,” but I will say it with far less respect than is implied with such a title, “I no longer have to work here!”

No, that won’t do. “I quit!”

No, too cliché!

Ahhhh, I know. I will tell him, “Clean your own bio-hazard containers! I am out of here!” That will get him; get him good it will. He will probably still be confuses and I will have to finally spell it out for him.

I will cite those beautiful numbers once more as I look him in his beady little eyes. I will look him in his eyes and count the numbers off very slowly, annunciating, “Six-FOUR-teen, NINE-teen, THIRTY-TWO, THIRTY-four, and TA-WELVE!” Then I will laugh. It will probably sound like a crazy laugh to anyone around me, but I will just laugh and grab my newspaper. Then I will walk through the offices and past Donella, yelling to everyone, “I WON AND I AM DONE!”

S**t! The door is locked! God damnit, why is the door locked?

It is then that I notice the sign�"“Quarterly Meeting Until 12:00”

I ponder.

I wonder.

I contemplate.

“Eh, f**k it…I’ll go home!” with a bit more enthusiasm and a smile. “I can tell Patty!!” Why do I care about these a******s? They won’t really even care I bet. They can figure it out for themselves when OB-GYN calls and asks why the bio-containers aren’t cleaned. Donella will page me overhead I am sure:

“Carl Franklin, please report to OB-GYN STAT! Carl Franklin OB-GYN STAT!”

But I won’t and then they will know.

I hurriedly scamper up the back stairs and like a child try to take as many stairs at a time as I can. I have only been at work for about an hour now but still find myself blinded by the sun when I open the back door. Its rays reflect off of the dozens of cars in the lot and they all look alike. Finally my eyes focus and I can begin making out colors, makes, and models. My car is probably the easiest of all to find. Rust does not glimmer.

For some reason I feel a wave of guilt come over me and find myself looking around as if afraid to be caught ‘skipping out.’ I am, after all, leaving work early.

No, wait…I quit. Well sorta. I am the only one who knows I quit. I tightly grasp my newspaper as if it is a get out of jail free card. With the other hand I reach for the handle of the car door, open it and get inside. The heat from within the car causes me to begin sweating almost immediately and I find it difficult to breathe in the hot, humid air.

Immediately the radio comes on as the ignition fires and I can hear the disc jockey talking about local news:

A 27 year old woman suffered mild heat stroke and was rushed to the hospital after she somehow became locked in her car while cleaning out the inside. She is quoted as saying, “I have electric locks and must have left the keys in the house.” Doctors expect her to make a full recovery. In other news there was one winner for the Mega Millions Lottery…..

Tomorrow I will be the local news! ”Carl Franklin, a custodian at St. Francis Hospital, won the Mega Millions Lottery Wednesday night. Mr. Franklin was quoted as saying,
I won and I am done!”

Next week’s lotto….

It’s hot! The Ferrari will have air conditioning. Wait, T-tops! No, a convertible! I shift the car into gear and speed out of the parking lot towards home. My mind wanders over all the things I have ever wanted to buy; all of the things I never knew I wanted. I could take Patty and I on cruise…

“S**t! Patty!?!?” I say aloud. Here I have been so focused on telling everyone about my good fortune that I haven’t even called my girlfriend to tell her I won.

Ha, girlfriend! I am not even sure what we are. I mean she is pretty much living with me and we are sleeping together. But girlfriend? Has it been long enough to give it a label yet? We’ve only been together for about six and a half months. A one night stand that turned into another, and another, and another, and then suddenly she was getting mail at my place.

Yeah, I guess girlfriend would do. The sound of it makes me feel like I have won the lottery all over again! Quickly I reach into my pocket, fumble for my cell phone, and press speed dial when it if firmly in my grasp.

One ring.

Two rings.

Three rings.

Four rings….voicemail, ““Hey this is Patty, leave me your name, number and a brief message and I will call you back… Toodles.” I hang up. The biggest day of my life and I can’t seem to share it with anyone. The drive home seems so lonely.

I pull into the dingy old trailer park. Little children run around barefoot and shirtless. Broken down cars litter the sides of the road, yet many are newer than the trailer homes they lie in front of. My garbage still sits upon the curbside, one bag torn apart and spread across my lot.

Damn dogs!

When I get out of the car I call to one of the neighbor kids to come clean up the mess for five bucks. He happily accepts and I find myself enjoying the feeling of having paid servants.

The old metal stairs creak and whine as I walk up them to the trailer house door. To my surprise the door is locked and I fumble with my keys to get it open.

The door is never locked.

Upon making my way inside I call out for Patty. The sound of Dr. Phil’s voice greets me instead from the television, which is unusually loud. He is in the middle of consoling a married couple on infidelities. I chuckle and then turn the t.v. off. From the end of the trailer I can hear the sound of the shower running and what sounds like singing�"really, really, bad singing.

Time to celebrate! I think to myself and swiftly begin to shed my clothing and tip-toe towards the bedroom. I am giddy. I feel like a kid sneaking down the hall on Christmas morning as not to wake the parents from their slumber. Slowly I turn the door knob and make my way through the bedroom and into the bathroom. Patty’s singing is awful. It is as if she is humming or moaning the tune, but there are no lyrics.

I’ll make her sing! I chuckle to myself.

I reach for the shower curtain and in a single motion jerk it wide open like that child ripping into his Christmas presents.

“CARL!!!” Patty is most definitely surprised.

Her wet skin glistened as the light caught hold of it, and for a moment I stood in admiration of her naked form. Water dripped from Patty’s ample breasts, which hung from her body like giant drops of water wanting to fall to the floor of the tub. However, it was only a split-second of admiration on my part. Behind Patty stood a man whom I had never laid eyes upon, doing that which should have been mine to do.

The three of us stare at one another in what probably should have been a much more uncomfortable moment�"given the fact that we were all naked. Only the sounds of water running down the drain can be heard.

Patty breaks the silence standoff as she grabs and pulls the shower curtain partway closed to cover up her transgression of trust, “Carl, what the f**k are you doing home?”

Home seemed to be the operative word. It wall takes a moment to register. The realization of my nudity hits me and I bolt back into the bedroom to find some clothes.

This is not how today is supposed to play out! This is the biggest day of my life and I can’t seem to find a moment to gloat or celebrate. I am so confused.

I want to be angry.

I want to be mad.

I want to lash out!

But, all I can do is think about what I would say…the words were seemingly trapped in my throat.

Patty finally emerges from the bathroom and through the open door I can see the naked stranger cowering in the bathroom.

“Carl, I can explain!” Patty says in a rather heartless tone. How can anyone think that there could possibly be any sort of explanation for this?

“How do you explain f*****g someone in our shower Patty?” I ask with the utmost condescension. “Do you have any idea what has happened today? Do you have any idea what today is?”

She stares at me with a combined look of blankness and confusion.

“I won Patty!” to finally say those words to another human being almost completely erases the pain of seeing my ‘girlfriend’ with another penis in her. It really didn’t matter anymore. Actually, the loss was all hers.

“Won what?” she replies in her toughest bitchy tone.

That tone made it even easier.

“The lottery Patty! I won the lottery!!” I tell her as I reach for the paper and then read the numbers out loud once more, “Six-FOUR-teen, NINE-teen, THIRTY-TWO, THIRTY-four, and TA-WELVE!”

For a moment she stands there bewildered and puzzled. Then a slow smile begins to form on her face and she begins screaming, “Oh my god!! We won!” and with that she jumps into my arms, pressing her naked body against me in a tight embrace.

I push her wet body away, “No, we didn’t win. I won! I did!”

“Where is the ticket Carl?” she asks feciciously.

F**k me! The ticket!

I laugh at myself for never once thinking about the ticket in all of the hub bub and excitement. So far the newspaper had been my ticket. I rush out to my pants, still lying in a heap on the living room floor. I jostle through them and pull out my wallet…..no ticket! My eyes move back and forth in my head as I process the data like some super computer.

Patty’s naked body speeds past me towards the kitchen and I take chase. All I can see is the crack of her a*s in front of me as we race towards the fridge. She begins rifling through the papers and notes on its door and she presses her a*s back against me as to push me away.

“God damn it!” I yell at her, “knock it off!”

She shoots a look at me and we end up speaking in unison….

“The bathroom!”

I have the lead this time and slow up when we reach the hallway, almost as if to instigate that fact. Patty tries to push herself past me in the narrow hall. Part of me wishes that button my shirt would give way and shoot her dead!

Somehow she bursts past me when we get into the bathroom by pushing me into the bed. When we throw open the bathroom door we find her guest, fully dressed, trying to crawl through the bathroom window which is about two sizes too small for a child. For a moment I am amazed at his perseverance and chuckle when I realize he is stuck.

Patty pays him no mind as she rifles through the loose singles on the bathroom sink and then screams loudly, “Where the hell is it?!?!”

She aggressively pushed past me, “Get out of my f****n’ way!” she demanded as she began tearing through the bedroom.

I push my hands into my jean’s pockets and watch the sight unfold.

I cannot help but find it amusing now. This whole time it has eluded Patty’s attention that she is still completely nude. Given the situation I am no longer fascinated or in awe of this naked form, but instead begin to take notice of all the imperfections that had previously gone unnoticed.

Stretch marks seemed to form almost right before my eyes. Her breasts never seemed to sag so much before. The indentations upon her a*s reminded me of staring at craters upon the moon’s surface.

No. No, the title of girlfriend didn’t work for me. Not today. Not this woman.

It all begins to sink in. Here is this naked woman going through my things and a strange guy is dangling from my bathroom window. Today I won and in winning I lost it all.

But what did I lose? I ponder.

A job I hated?

Friends I never had?

A woman who didn’t love me?

What did I really lose?

I wiggle my hands, still in my pants pocket and feel my fingers brush up against something. I pull my hand out and open it up before my eyes. There in my palm lie some crumpled up one dollar bills, three Werther’s candies, and a folded lottery ticket.

I smile as I unfold the ticket and read the numbers to myself, “6-14-19-32-34-12.”

I won!

“You found it!”  Patty screams, causing my smile to momentarily fade. Once again she jumps into my arms, knocking us both onto the bed. One after another she places unwanted kisses upon my face and lips until finally I push her back. “Oh my God Carl, we won!”

“No Patty, I won!” I quietly reply. I look her deep into her eyes and clearly speak the words, “I won and I am done!”

Finally I get to say those words…words that were worth $36 million!!

Author's Note

I am enrolled in a Masters program at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire campus. The stories I am writing are second or third drafts of stories I have written for my portfolio. While they have been peer-reviewed on the initial drafts, no one has read the follow-up versions. I would just love input on the stories. Thank you for your comments.