Supplicant

The universe has created a situation in which I must cross a road choked with every cop car in the city to turn in an art grant application in the eleventh hour. I dash into traffic flanked by dads saluting as a hearse glides by on Delaware and I thought the word "pig" but said the words "fallen officer" to the well-dressed man from the art organization who recognized my Manila folder and frantic gait. I ignored some winky slacker inferences as I thrust the thing into administrative hands, who discerned a doping sub-adult in the business of spinning newsprint into ridiculous foody forms, smelled me troubleshooting for little children, contentedly pasting ice green tissue paper onto cardboard tacos at their beckon call. I am a lady in waiting to a little girl who paints a gargantuan Starbucks frappuccino pink with her entire palm and I have streaks of Elmer's school glue on my thighs when I show up to ask the nice men for their money. Now the paperwork in the packet has a life outside of me and every stolen office supply in the tri-county area couldn't turn the wrong head.