Author: The Preset

You know within seconds when it’s not on you. Your body feels the absence. You’ve already patted every pocket — and then some — by the time your brain catches up: my phone. It hasn’t been gone ten minutes and you’re already in full-on detective mode trying to recover it. Retracing your last twenty steps…

There’s an open pizza box on the table. One slice left.  It’s been sitting there for a while now. Long enough that the sheen is gone and the cheese has set.  Everyone has noticed it. No one has touched it. Because everyone there understands something that nobody ever had to explain. You picked it up…

You walk into the building and find the elevators. A small group of people are already waiting — some quiet, some half-chatting. Some hurried, some not. You take it all in without consciously noting any of it, including whether there’ll be room enough on the next elevator. There will be. The doors open and everyone…

The instructions are done. A few people start to shift in their seats or glance around the room. The presenter clicks to a blank slide, looks up, and finally utters the four words everyone has been expecting for the last 20 minutes: “Are there any questions?” The room goes quiet. Not because everyone understood perfectly.…

Someone passes you in the hallway at work. “Hey, how are you?” they say, already moving. “Good, thanks, you?” you say, already moving too. “Good,” they say.  And that’s it. You’re both on your way, and back to business. Nothing unusual. You both knew exactly what to do, and you did it without thinking. The…

You’re invited to dinner. You accept. On the drive over, you’re thinking about a lot of things. Work. Something someone said earlier. The chores you need to do tomorrow. Your mind is on anything but dinner. Then you walk in, and all of that changes. The smell hits you immediately. You can’t quite name it,…

There’s a moment at every social gathering when the excitement of being there starts to wear off. The room feels a little louder, the conversations thinner, your drink a little warmer. You’ve been thinking about leaving for the past hour or so, and finally it’s time to go. The only question is how to make…

Someone hands you a gift. Not just anyone, someone who matters to you a lot. So you take it with an excited smile, hold it up to your ear, and give it that exaggerated shake — way people do, trying to guess what’s inside before opening it. Of course you have no idea what’s actually…

There’s a moment, usually about four minutes into a conversation, where you realize you’ve made a mistake. You’re standing with two people who’ve never met. Maybe it’s a work friend you ran into while you were with your partner. Maybe it’s two people from completely different parts of your life who ended up in the…

There’s a four-way stop somewhere near you that has claimed more dignity than you’d like to admit. You pull up at the same moment as another car. Maybe a half second apart. Close enough that neither of you is clearly first. You both pause. You both do the little hand wave. Sometimes twice. They inch…