There were three stale cookies on a paper plate next to Brinker’s laptop, open to the email thanking him for twenty years of service to Killarney Industries.
Brinker couldn’t remember when he baked the cookies, only that he did bake the cookies, because they were too irregular to be store-bought.
Couldn’t have shared them with the neighbor kid, because a single guy can’t offer a kid anything without winding up on the news.
Brinker hit the link that took him to the site where he could pick out his gift for twenty years of service to Killarney Industries, formerly Groeswire, before that Mills Manufacturing, nee Edelman and O’Brien.
He had been in the Warren, Michigan office for two months.
His cubicle was in a corner. The “team” he was supposed to be on spent a lot of time “in the field”, which Brinker thought was an incredibly pastoral term for “assessing someone else’s manufacturing facility”.
Brinker scrolled through the various gifts.
A camping set. An off-brand digital piano. Six months of steaks.
There was an opt-out at the bottom. A gift certificate to Lowe’s. Without hesitation he clicked on the gift certificate, feeling like he would never camp, learn the piano, or eat the steaks before they were freezer burned.
He bit a stale cookie and absently flicked through the Lowe’s site. Sale on chainlink fence.
Damn good price, as far as Brinker could tell.
He had purchased the house because he was tired of apartments. Tulsa, Cedar Rapids, Toledo, now suburban Detroit. Got a good deal. Plenty of fence money, especially with the gift from Killarney.
He had vacation time coming. Looked at the calendar. Realized that he had sick time too. If he made it to Jan.1 he could cash in the vacation time.
Called Morris, told him he had to have some tests done. Might be a kidney infection, might be worse.
Morris wished him luck.
Two days later he had a new fence and a new batch of cookies.
Got in his car and drove through the streets of Detroit.
After twenty years of patience, he had his own home, a brand new fence, no friends and no patience.
Brinker was gonna use his next three days of sick time to find himself a stray dog.
***
Photo by John Arano on Unsplash
❤️🐶🐶