Page 5 of From Fling to Ring

But my case is different. I love going to my boss’s office.

Because I love my boss.

She’s been good to me since the day I started at the Freekly. Actually, she’s good to everyone on our motley little team, but I like to think I have a special bond with her. She’s encouraging, provides constructive criticism without making you feel like shit, and doesn’t let anything rile her up, even when we have misspellings on the front page—we’re a free weekly paper after all, so there are times the proofreader is out driving the delivery truck.

Michaela’s also become a sort of mentor to me, thanks to our mutually shared interests and talents.

Her words, not mine.

“Michaela, how’s your day going?” I ask, bouncing into her office and making myself at home in the wooden garage-sale chair across from her desk.

Like I said, we’re a free weekly.

I sit ramrod straight, even though the seat on the ancient swivel chair I planted my ass on tilts at an uncomfortable degree. A notebook and pen are balanced on my knee, ready to record all the knowledge she’s surely about to throw at me.

“Your hair!” she says with an approving smile.

Once again, my spirits soar. It’s one thing to feel good about your haircut, but to have the woman you harbor a not-so-secret girl crush on also notice and approve—well, it doesn’t get much better than that.

I cup the edges of my new ‘do. “Thanks, Michaela. I’m really liking it,” I say with all the modesty I can muster.

Maybe next time I won’t let so much time slip by between hair appointments, expense be damned. This feeling is practically worth my yearly salary.

“I can see why you’re happy with it, Lucy. Now, let’s get down to business. This is going to be a busy week for you.”

I shimmy in my chair, waiting for my next assignment, knowing my great relationship with her could guarantee I get the pick of the best city happenings to cover for our faithful readers.

The pages of SF Freekly won’t be up for a Pulitzer Prize anytime soon—actually, ever—but we provide an important service to the city of San Francisco. I take that responsibility very seriously.

Another important thing I have in common with the boss.

I am hoping against hope that the days of shitty assignments are behind me, now that I have some tenure here. Not that I deserve better than Sarge, who’s been here even longer than Michaela, who is rumored to have, back in the day, dropped acid with the hippy founders of the Freekly. Regardless, I am feeling entitled to a nice little fluff piece on maybe the Union Square Dispensary’s newest edibles—rumor has it they are carrying delicious shortbread cookies now, infused with cannabis—or something like that. I really never indulge, but these are the talk of the city, at least among subversive crowds like the Freekly’s.

Although anything would be better than the assignment I got last May, where I was to not only cover the zany annual Bay to Breakers footrace across the city, but where I had to zero in on the old men who walk the race naked every year.

Nudity is a thing in San Francisco. You never know when you’ll see someone walking down the street like they forgot to get dressed after their morning shower aside from putting shoes and socks on. The city’s cracking down on that, though, excuse the pun. If you go out without your pants on, you are now required to sit on a napkin or some such to keep your bare ass off anything that might be shared by the general public.

Not even the nudists have a problem with that regulation.

But the old naked men taking part in Bay to Breakers have always attracted an extra bit of attention for several reasons, and Michaela decided I would be the person, at least on behalf of SF Freekly, to get to the, ahem, bottom of that.

The men I interviewed were very nice and polite and explained this was part of their self-expression, something encouraged in San Francisco's culture of funky eccentricity. I get that, doing your own thing, but I don’t plan to join these guys anytime soon, preferring to keep my private bits covered. Even though a couple of them invited me to.

In the end, I managed not to look at any wrinkly ball sacs, so no one was harmed in the making of my article.

But, please God, don’t make me do that again.

“What do you have for me, Michaela?” I say, literally on the edge of my seat for balance.

She flips her long, straight hair behind her shoulders, and, folding her hands on the desk between us, smiles benevolently at me. “I think you’re going to like this one, Lucy.”

Oh my God. If she doesn’t hurry up and tell me, I’m going to pee my pants.

“How about a story on the worst public restrooms in the city? You know, we’ll do one of those listicle things. People can download it from our app and carry it with them at all times in order to avoid the most notorious ones.”

Um. What? I’m sure I didn’t hear her right. Restrooms? Public restrooms? The worst public restrooms?

No, no, no, no. Please, no.

---