Dear Cornered (A Mama Kat Prompt)

The Mama Kat post I am writing today incorporates prompt #2, “write your own ‘Dear Abby’ letter and #1, “incorporate the phrase ‘stop looking at me like that’ into your post.”

Dear Abby,

It may be unusual for some boxes, a bulletin board, and a whiteboard to write you (we got help from a human), but it has come to this.

Our owner packed us up and moved us five months ago in September because her reporting relationship in the org chart had changed and she had to move. The stuff in us boxes got put away but us boards have been unhung for the entire five months. Things did not get any better when our owner’s office was painted and carpeted over Christmas. She packed everything BACK up into the boxes, labeled us with her number, labeled the boards with her number and worked from home while the office got redone.

It is February. Here we sit.

We boxes really don’t care. We like our sunny corner. We know the stuff in us is relatively unimportant to our owner, and she’ll get to us eventually. Besides, once we get unpacked she’ll get out those scissors and slice that tape holding us together (ouch), fold us up and unceremoniously deposit us in the mailroom to await someone else who needs us. Us boards do want to get hung, but we know that she’ll get to us. After all, we have pictures of her kids on us and we know that she needs our presence to get through every day.

The thing is that the most senior person at her office walks in and stands there staring at us. We know he wants us gone. We know that our owner cringes inside every time he looks at us in that way and says something that doesn’t sound all that sincere to her, like “yeah I guess you have been busy.”

What should we do?

Sincerely,

Cornered

Dear Cornered,

You are kind of boxed in there aren’t you? (Sorry, I can’t help myself with the wordplay!!).

Whiteboard, this is your time to come out from behind that bulletin board and “speak up.”

I suggest you get a human (your owner, maybe) to help you with the following message:

STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.

and add this:

TAKE A LOOK AT OUR OWNER INSTEAD, AND SAY, THANKS FOR CARING ABOUT YOUR JOB.

And that, Dear Cornered, will really be “thinking out of the box.”

Respectfully,

Abby

Paula Kiger

Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.