It is when I am about to leave to take our daughter to school, a little earlier this morning as she needs to be dropped off at the freshman building, and we don’t want to be caught behind the 66 bus or we will sit through two cycles at the stoplight, that Bobo, her pandemic kitten who is no longer a kitten but who has never properly used the cat box, decides to take a shit on the carpet in the foyer and as she is crouching, tail lifted like a defiant middle finger in my face, I grab the horrid little beast, holding her aloft like Simba in The Lion King, running toward the cat box in the sunroom, practically stepping on the flatulent 14 year old incontinent Boston Terrier, who has left yet another puddle of piddle in the dining room, and screaming at Bobo as she is dropping turds through the living room, I am also thinking that while I am so happy Catee’s best friend Delia was accepted to Tufts, and God knows I am because Delia is a great kid and a hard worker like Catee, but even so I have to acknowledge, damn it, as I also notice that Micky, the once feral cat we rescued two years ago, has picked, picked, picked at the new carpet in the living room, the same one Bobo has just bombed with a wet shit, I have to admit that, sweet Christ, can Catee just catch a damn break and get admitted to one of these top notch schools that she has worked her ass off to gain entry into because the last four years, and especially, especially these god awful isolating years of this pandemic, have cost us all so dearly, robbed us basically of happiness, left my poor girl crippled with anxiety, and especially now that U**, that same stupid school that accepted her last summer into its elite Senior Scholar Project, has rejected her, that I realize I am in the sunroom, holding this bloody cat we adopted to lessen our daughter’s depression and loneliness, over a goddamn empty cat box because I already have shit all over me.

I am electing to publish this CNF here instead of shopping it around literary magazines. This was written in a very Of The Moment vein for a workshop with Retreat West. I like it; I don’t love it but I think it accurately portrays the frustration, anxiety and utter craziness that families who are going through the college application process (in the U.S.) feel. The workshop challenge was to craft a one sentence story. RW is an amazing resource for writers. As always, thank you for reading!