And while we’re accepting blame, I’d also like to blame literally every other person in that office for being such a distraction. Maybe I would’ve faxed those documents correctly had it not been for Cynthia, who got up every ten minutes to smoke a cigarette and on more than one occasion, if my nose was right, drink from a flask of vodka she kept in her blazer pocket. Or for Patricia, who spoke rapid, angry Spanish into her desk phone for hours on end. Or for Deborah, who went to the movie theater with her boyfriend every Friday to see literally every movie released that week, only to come in on Monday and recount each plot in its entirety with absolutely no regard for spoilers. Or, worst of all, were it not for Janice and her aura of darkness.

I don’t want to discredit the obvious stress she was under as a working woman responsible for two grandchildren, but as my days as a full-blown accounting associate continued, so did Janice’s days as the epitome of melancholia.

On one afternoon, the girls and I were talking about vacations we’d been on, presumably to try visualizing some form of escape from the hell we were then laboring under. Maxine had recently been to Denver with her new husband. I was getting ready to go to Michigan with my family. Deborah couldn’t take vacations because she’d miss that week’s newest movies and it would throw off her whole schedule. It was a lovely conversation.

And then, out of nowhere, Janice says, “Well, we like to go camping. But the last time we went, our dog committed suicide.”

There was silence before someone said, “Wait. What?”

Yes, Janice explained, they’d been camping recently and had set up one of those elevated tents, the kind that ties to a few different tree trunks and hangs a couple feet above the ground to make the tent less accessible to bears or other woodland menaces, and when they stepped away, their dog managed to nuzzle the tent flap open and jump out. But he was still wearing his leash and he never made it to the ground.

Now, if your mouth is hanging open, you are not alone. We all sat in silence trying to process what she’d just said, entirely unprompted. Classic Janice.

“Jesus, Janice!” I said. “That’s awful.” Because that’s the only thing you can say to that kind of thing. Even though what you really wanna say is, “I don’t blame him. I would’ve done the same.”

That conversation trailed off into nothing.

But that was hardly the height of Janice’s melodrama.