My neighbor Don moved up here from someplace warm, where there’s no snow. On the first snowfall of the season, he thought he was a real genius when he tried to hose the stuff off of his driveway.
I’m doing his shoveling until he gets the cast off his leg.
Sarah Krenicki is sick of Nor’easters.
I once knew an absent-minded assassin who sent poisoned letters through the post. After a note had been anonymously deposited to be postmarked, she’d apply her favorite perfume and take herself out on the town.
Her career came to an end shortly after she mailed a letter doused in perfume.
Sarah Krenicki does not wear perfume. This could end up being a lifesaver.
My great-grandparents’ farmhouse was built from two barns pieced together. In addition to being a fun piece of genealogical trivia, this enables my father to enthusiastically reply “Yes!” whenever my mother inquires whether he was raised in a barn.
She rolls her eyes every time, but she still smirks, too.
Sarah Krenicki was not raised in a barn, but visited one often. That counts, right?
In college I had a roommate who kept “borrowing” my clothes.
I made a salt perimeter around my closet door as a passive-aggressive joke, but when it worked too well I tested it out on the refrigerator.
I reimbursed her for the week of take-out and we called it even.
Sarah Krenicki is 90% sure all her non-feline roommates have been human.
When the radiation cleared, they were ready.
When they ventured, blinking, out onto the surface, they were overwhelmed, but they were ready.
When they followed the maps, found the seed vault intact, they were ready.
When a fat mouse ran across the littered cement floor – no one was ready.
Sarah Krenicki likes writing short fiction about large things.
“We need to talk.”
“I’m sorry!” he shouted, thinking he knew what she wanted. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I can’t be the son you want. I’m sorry I can’t get my life together. You want perfection… I’m only human.”
“Ah,” she said, smiling sadly. “But you’re not.”
Sarah Krenicki is, in fact, only human. She makes up for this about writing stories about people and things who are not.