LAF OFTN

After a bad day of work and a non-informative group meeting, she scurried out of the office, only to step into an unembracing gust of wind. As she fought this invisible force to walk up the San Francisco hills, she let out a wimpish cry, for her calves throbbed and her biceps ached from a two-day old work-out. Following her cry, thoughts of denying her age entered for but a moment, and then she pressed play on her mini-iPod. Old school... TLC - Waterfalls... that was the song heard through her headphones, picked by the random selection option. She hoped to drown out the day's dissatisfaction with music, a consistent comfort. Today she had hoped to scintillate before her managers at her promotion interview, but it just was not meant to be... not today, at least. Five minutes after leaving the office, she reached the entrance of the parking structure, fishing for her car keys and hardly noticing Whitney Houston's voice now. She dug deep into her purse, only to find month old receipts, an uncapped pen, and an empty can of mints... no keys. She could have overreacted, given her despondent state of mind, but the numbness kept her from just that. This numbness settled in easily; after interviewing three years in a row and failing to gain the promotion, three years in a row, she was familiar with being left bereft of hope. Such a blow to her ego, and moreover, such stagnancy is often a harbinger of future layoffs, not something she was ready to accept, let alone the deterioration of her aging body. She just walked toward her car with her head down, allowing herself to be trapped intensely in remembering where she placed her car keys upon leaving the car just that morning. She could not remember... was that a sign of Alzheimer creeping up in her life? Completely overwhelmed by such a possibility, she gave up digging in her purse. She stopped, looked up and caught a glimpse of the license plate next to her own car: LAF OFTN. She smiled right then, allowed Whitney back into her mind, opened her car door, and laughed at herself, realizing she had had her car valeted by the garage attendant that morning.