“I am so sick on this! I can’t sleep, I don’t get it? I worked today, I went to school and last night I stayed up till six in the morning! I just don’t get why am not tired.”exclaimed Melidy as she tossed and turns in to her bed flipping the pillow over and over, At this point it around three in the morning and Melidy has already taken two Nyquil’s and one Benadryl, still she does not find herself tired. “Where is that freckling melatonin, I could have sworn I hid it in my bed side table,” Melidy whispers to herself while she ransacks her bedside table drawer. She finally finds the melatonin bottle and takes two of those awful smelling gel pills. She lays back in bed, with one pillow under her head and the o
...ther between her legs, and places the thin covers over herself, she usually likes some background noise so she leaves the bright TV on with very low volume. She does this for quite long time. Her eyes seem not to dizz.she got bored and turned to her novels and hymn books.
Now it’s around three in the morning and Melidy is still wide awake staring at the TV, she peers over at her small little grey fluff ball of a dog in the corner rolled up and sleeping soundly on his soft knit blanket. “I don’t get it, you sleep all day long, and you can’t still somehow find a way to sleep at night? How do you do it?” Melidy whispers to her dog Sushi. Sushi continues to sleep, lets out a small snort. “UGGHHHH” moans Melidy an
she combs her hands into her hair slightly puling on it. She closes her eyes but all she can think about is what challenges await her tomorrow and the thought about how she needs to wake up in an hour in a half. All the pills Melidy has taken throughout the night finally take their course and Melidy finally falls asleep at six in the morning after staying for that long hence she would sleep deeply due to being awake for long.
“Mel! Its six thirty, the kids need to be at school in half an hour and your dad and I need to go to work. Get your lazy ass out of bed and help us get the kids ready for school! All you ever do is sleep!” screams Melody’s stepmom Sandy as she open the door wide. Melidy springs up from bed in panic mode and notices her alarm has been blaring for half an hour since six in the morning. She rushes out of bed brushes her teeth, quickly puts on her scrubs and sneakers and runs to her sisters and brother’s rooms. “Let’s go! Both of you hop in the shower quickly and put on your school cloths on yours beds for when you are done, also as soon as you guys get dressed, meet me in my car.” Melidy shouts at her nine-year-old sister and four-year-old brother who are both still half asleep rubbing their eyes. Melidy power walks to the kitchen and grabs the first coffee bag she sees on the shelf. While the coffee is brewing she ties her long brown hair into a very messy bun and goes
to check on her sibling in the shower. She walks in the bathroom only to find both kids throwing their clothes around and the shower water running. “ARE YOU GUYS KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? LIKE, YOU HAVE SCHOOL IN TWENTY MINUETES! Get your butts in the shower right now and go get changed, I will bring your breakfast in the car on the way to school. Her siblings Krishelle and Kory race each other to the shower. Melidy returns to the kitchen, pours her hot coffee into a to go cup and scrambles to find a lid which she gives up trying to find after two minutes, she races to the car, scrapes off all the dead leaves that had piled on the windshield and turn it on. Both kids run to the car and get in as fast as possible. Melidy looks at the time and notices it is already six fifty-five. She slams her foot on the gas and drives the kids to school as fast as possible. As soon as they get out of the car Melidy rolls down the window and exclaims “bye guys, love you. See you later”. She reaches over with her right hand in the cup holder only to find no coffee and realizes she had left it at home. Melidy rolls her eyes and waits as all the moms and dads take their sweet time leaving the school.
Melidy had finally exited the school traffic and checks her watch, it’s already seven thirty and she needs to be at the office at seven forty-five. “My boss is going to kill me!”. Alright Melidy today might be the day
where you get fired so let’s prepare an exit strategy. Okay you can say something like, whatever this office would fall apart without me. Or maybe you can say something like, that’s fine, Dr. Peter, good luck finding somebody on such short notice that will also go to your house on weekends to shut your gate, and also when you forget to feed your horses when you’re out of town!” Melidy mumbles to herself while letting out a big yawn. It is already seven fourth five but Melidy is still stuck about ten minutes away from her work in morning traffic. She fiddles with her fingers and blasts the air conditioning to full blast along with the radio just to keep her from falling asleep in traffic. She finds a parking spot and runs to the veterinarian’s office. She glances through the window just before opening the door and sees five patients with their cats and dogs in the waiting room where she has to walk in through. “Good morning everyone, Dr. Peter and I will be right with you. As she skips to the back room. She looks around for the other vet technician and Dr. Peter only to find that they are already in an examination room, she sighs deeply and rushes over to the coffee machine to try and chug as much as she possibly can before going in to see the next patient and starting her day at the office. Melidy hears the the back room door open and slam shut “Oh well look who it is, Melidy good morning to you, you do realize it is eight fifteen right? I
am pretty sure we made it clear that I need you know by latest seven forty-five to walk the dogs and clean their cages right? I am so glad you’re making yourself at home here, if you wanted to keep on doing coffee duty you should have just let me known. Do me a favor Mel, get your ass in the kennels and walk the dogs, I am sure there will be nice surprises waiting for you. Don’t be late again! I need someone reliable and on time!” Dr. Peter says to Melidy raising his voice little by little as he continues on with his nagging.
“I am so sorry Dr. Peter, I was up all night again and the kids were late to school and I got stuck in traffic on my…”
“I do not give three shifts about your excuses anymore Melidy just get shit done!”
Melidy chugs the last bit of her coffee before entering the kennels dreading what she is about to walk in on. As soon as she opens the kennel room door all dogs begin to bark nonstop and the cats jump on the front of the medal gate hissing at Melidy. She cannot believe her eyes and quietly chokes up to the point of almost tearing and murmurs to the animals “Que hicieron! Why would you guys do this to me! How is it even possible to get shit on the walls of your cages! You’re all going to need baths!” One by one Melidy takes the dogs and cats out of the cages and throws all the piss and shit covered newspapers out, and places all towels and blankets in
the wash. She disinfects all cages with chlorhexidine and places fresh new papers and towels in the cages. This process took Melidy about an hour and the next three hours Melidy will spend walking all the dogs and giving each and every one of the animals a bath. Finally finishing Melidy walks out of the kennel room back into the room where the other vet technician Mandy and Dr. Peter were having their lunch break. “AHAHAHHAHAH Mel! What happened to you back there?! Did you take a shower with your scrubs on or something?” Mandy belted at Mel who was dripping in water and flea shampoo. “Very funny.” Responded Melidy sarcastically and she sat down on the counter next to the coffee machine. “Guys we need to finish up, we have three appointments left.”
After all the customers and co-workers as well as Dr. Peter left the office, Melidy walks the dogs one last time before she gets ready to leave the office and lock up. She walks the dogs one by one and places them back in their cages. She changes the cats litter boxes so they have fresh litter throughout the night and then locks up the kennel door behind her after she leaves the room. She checks to make sure all the lights were off throughout the office and all the surgical equipment is disinfected and put away in their proper stations. She takes the garbage bags out to the dumpster behind the office and replaces each and every can with a fresh garbage bag. Lastly Melidy sweeps and mops the entire office and replaces the mop water before she sets the alarm
and locks the front office door. Melidy mumbles to herself “My God, I hope tomorrow will be better. I’m so exhausted; thank God I can just go home now and take a nice long hot bath and maybe fall asleep early tonight.” As she walks to her car Melidy notices her two back tires are unusually low so she drives to the gas station right next to the office and places four quarters into the tire air machine, while the air is flowing through the tires she checks to see why the psi is so low on her two back tires, she notices two nails in both tires and recalls when she drove through a construction site after dropping her siblings off at school just to get to her work place faster and instantly feels regret flowing through her veins. She leaves the gas station in her car and checks her watch “It’s already five thirty! Ugh I am going to sit in traffic for at least an hour before I get to go home, this day legit can’t get worse. I just wanna go home!” While sitting in this traffic Melidy has already yawned about five times in the last ten minutes and finds that she has barely any energy to keep her hands on the steering wheel and foot on the break holding it down. Melidy feels her eyes getting more heavier and cannot keep them open much longer she figures putting her car in park and resting her eyes for five minutes will give her enough energy to get home. All of a sudden she hears her unnecessarily loud ringtone and her
eyes spring open as she reaches over in her broken down purse to answer her annoyingly loud phone. “Mel? Where are you? Are you home yet? Someone needs to pick up the kids from soccer practice.” Her father shouted. “What? Soccer practice but it’s not even Wednesday yet?!” Melidy responded proudly like she knew exactly what she was talking about. “Wow Mel, you really are freaking out of it aren’t you? It Wednesday, I don’t know what la la land you’ve been at but it’s time to get your shit together. Please go get the kids! I am still at the office” “But I am still on my way home! I am still thirty minutes away from home! Why can’t Sandy pick them up! She is their mom!” Melidy said angrily at her father through the phone. “Listen Mel, as long as you live in my house you need to help! Go get the kids, now let me go I have to work.” Her father responded “Conio you should have thought about that before you decided to marry a thirty-year-old and have more kids! I’m not fucking Cinderella!” Mel screamed before hanging up on her dad. At this point Mel felt rage, she wanted to blare her horn at all the traffic in front of her until she got home, she banged on her steering wheel trying to let all her frustration out. She recalled what her therapist said to do when she felt this angry towards her parents. So she breathed in deep three times and finally relaxed a bit before remembering it was Wednesday which could only mean one thing. “Wait if its
Wednesday then that means it’s the 24th of August! Oh shit, it’s the stepmoms birthday.” Melidy said out loud in disbelief, “I gotta get a cake and a card! Will this day every end! Here I am thinking I was going home and they spring this mierda on me.” Melidy thinks angrily to herself while searching the nearest Publix on her maps.
Melidy found herself in front of the cashier for some reason and oddly enough she just began to blurt out her problems by saying “You have got to be kidding me! Dios mio Santo! Conio! This is probably the shitiest day of my entire life. Okay maybe I am being just a bit dramatic but come on! First my car does not start so I have to call this guy to come fix it, and of course I’m late for work and then I have to hear my boss bitching about how we have “lives to save” he’s the doctor! I’m just the freaking pet nurse! That’s his job! Then of course nobody walks the kennel dogs so there is literal shit everywhere!! On my shoes, on the dogs, on my uniform, on the fucking walls! So then I have to give them all a bath and clean the cages and by the time I have to bring another client into an exam room it looks like I was the one taking a bath in my cloths! And now imp here talking to you when all I wanted was to go home, take a nice hot bath, maybe toss some bubble bath in there, and maybe if I’m lucky enough… a glass of wine
while binge watching shameless on Netflix, ugh!” “Uhh yea, vas a pagar por esto senorita? There are other people in line behind you” said the poor cashier. “Are you fucking kidding me! So rude! You know what, I’m going to shop around a bit more.” Melidy shouted back at her rude remark. So while Melidy is walking through Publix she still can’t decide why she left my stepmoms birthday for the last minute, “I do this every time! I have to get a cake, and a card, and I should probably get a card for my dad and sibling also because God knows he forgot her birthday. He can’t even remember his own birthday for crying out loud.” Melidy yelled at herself mentally.
“Okay what is next on the list hmmm, oh balloons! Okay ill grab some pink ones and yellow ones cause that’s her favorite color, right? Yea let’s go with that. Next I gotta get the cake, yea the cake! What was her favorite again?? Oh right! Oreo! Oh she is going to be so happy! I hate walking through the refrigerated food aisle, and also the bakery aisle, it’s so cold! And of course this is Miami so why in the world would I wear something warm. As I predicted esta mas Frio que el Corazon of my stepmom, I just want to get this cake and split. Okay not in this fridge, lets the next one. Not in this one either?! You got to be kidding me!” Melidy said to herself softly but sternly. Near the fridge, she could only stare through the oreo shelf without a word. One of the shop attendants
was talking to Melidy, but nothing was getting into her sense. ‘’Does it mean that I am sick?’’ You could read the questions running in her mind. ‘’okay, Mr. Psychologist, can you take me to your private room and examine me?’’ She was beginning to shout without her knowledge. ‘’ No, I don’t wan’t those drugs’’ She yelled. She realized she was talking to herself. She proceeded to the next shelf next to the bakery.
“Pardon me senora pero tienen un cake de Oreo? No importa el tamanio.” She said to the elderly lady working behind the counter at the bakery. “No mi amor, the last one was bought this morning.” The kind elderly woman replied back to Melidy. She could legit feel my face burning and turning bright red and her eyebrows almost meeting in the center of her face, she was about to fucking scream but instead she calmly paid for the things she had in hand already and left. And like a normal person, poor Melidy got in her car and cried out of frustration.
After Melidy finished crying out of frustration in her car Melidy proceeded to the next store to find that “Oreo cake que no le vale un pito” as she would put it, for her stepmother’s birthday which of course was left to the last minute as always. She knew that her stepmother would get home from work at precisely at eight o clock pm. It was already six thirty and time was ticking; so she slammed on the gas pedal and rushed over to the next Publix by her house. She parked her car and of course it was
raining, she had no umbrella so she threw a random towel she had in her car on her head and ran as fast as she could to the entrance. In the store she could hear the thunder outside over the annoying shopping giddy music playing in Publix. The thunder brought her a bit of relief though, she thought to herself “maybe if its storming then Sandra will be home a little later because God knows she hates getting her hair wet, especially since she just went to the peluceria this morning.” She sighed a breath of relief and scurried over to the bakery section. Only this time she came prepared, she was wearing a way oversized Jaqueta that was just sitting in her trunk probably for months just because she just needed it for that one cold morning in December of last year. First she power walked over to the already prepared cakes in the fridges conveniently placed right next to the section where they had all the baked goods like pumpkin jam filled pastels and croquets. She looked low and high, well as high as she could be considering she was only 4’9; so she had to stand on her toes which at this point you would think she would have some great calf muscles considering she does this every day of her life, multiple times a day. Anyways, no matter how much she looked she could not find this Oreo cake. It appeared she was going to have another meltdown when she combed her hands through her hair almost tearing it all out and then placed them roughly over her eyes. She stomped
her foot but then looked up at the overly bright lights on the ceiling and took a deep breath; she slammed the fridge door closed and ran to the counter at the bakery section. Her eyebrows scrunched as she looked around for someone working but of course with her luck could not find one single soul. Melidy raised her voice just a bit to say “Hola? Alguen esta por aqui que me puede ayudar?” No one responded. Without thinking twice, she belted out “HAAAAALLLLLOOOOOOOOO!!!” This time some older looking lady walked out of the back room rubbing her eyes and yawned. “Como te puedo alludar senorita” the tired looking lady said to Melidy. “Estoy buscando UN cake de Oreo, no importa el tamanio. Lo tienes?!” The lady told her “Esta por detras en el fridge final”. Melidy responded rudely with “Okay gracias….” but in her head she thought “I already fucking checked their lady!” She ran so fast to the fridge’s that her towel slipped right out of her arms but she did not bother going back to get it let alone looked back. She opened the fridge so aggressively that the door almost broke off the hinges! She rampaged through the cakes, pushing them left and right not even caring if she messed them up. Low and behold there she saw that Oreo cake, it was miniature but she picked it up anyways and said to herself “Bueno, this will just have to do”. Melidy powerwalked carefully to the register trying not to mess up the cake and paid the $14.56 for it.
She had forgotten about the whole rain situation outside so when she
exited the store she was glad she put on her oversized sweater, she also remembered dropping her towel back at the bakery section but it was already seven forty-five and of course she did not care to go back and get it. Melidy sprinted to her car and with her left hand searched in her pocket for the keys. She placed the now beat up cake in the trunk but then she popped it open wet brown leaves fell in because she parked under a tree, but it was the only spot open in the whole lot. She decided to do something about the leaves after and slammed the trunk closed. She rushed over to the driver’s side and opened the door quickly, using the window wipers she swiped all the dead wet leaves off of the front windows, put the car in reverse and speeded home.
Things were beginning to turn differently for Melidy. In her mind life was turning out positive. As she drove home, she felt some kind of ‘’fresh mind.’’ ‘’All these shit is almost done’’ She said to herself. There was some sort of relieve in her mind. The kennels, the dogs, all the shit and the authorizing boss were all getting off her mind. ‘’it’s me. I am Melidy.’’ ‘’People should see and accept me.’’ Melidy was starting a new turning a new leaf.
