your drink, is it freezd?

the first time I went in there I pointed at one of those extra-skinny baguettes and said “a flute, please” feeling pretty sure of myself, and the baker said “… that’s a ficelle” (you idiot) (was implied) “a flute is twice as large as a baguette.”

That’s insane, first of all, a flute is a skinny instrument. Call your fat baguette a bassoon, lady—I made some timid remark about how it would make more sense for a flute to be a skinny bread and the baker said, “In Paris it is. I thought you were from the South?”

oh, that hurt

I guess I’m from the part of the South that’s so close to Italy the bread’s waist size matters less than whether it’s got olives in it, but I left the bakery having an existential crisis over whether living in Paris had made me forget my roots

the Least Intimidating Bakery just had normal baguettes vs. seedy baguettes vs. horny baguettes (easy mode, some have seeds, some have horns), while the new bakery has breads that are only different on a molecular level—there’s a good old loaf and then another, identical loaf called a bastard? google told me a bastard is “halfway between a baguette and a bread” but denouncing them like “those are not regulation-sized bastards” would get me banned from the bakery for life

on my 2nd visit (while I stood in line discreetly googling baguette terminology) there was an English tourist who asked for a baguette while pointing at what was either a rustique or a sesame and I felt a bit worried for them, but the baker just clarified “this one?” to waive any responsibility if they found out later it wasn’t a classic baguette, then handed them the bread without educating them in a judgmental tone and I felt envious

I know it’s because she thinks the English are beyond saving but still it made me want to come back with a fake moustache and an English accent so I wouldn’t be expected to play bakery on expert mode just because I’m French. I asked for a pastry this time and the baker asked “no bread with that?” which felt cruel, like she wanted me to sprinkle myself with ashes and admit out loud that my level of bread proficiency isn’t as advanced as I once believed it was

The third time I went, I had lost all self-confidence and I hesitantly pointed at a bread and said “I’d like this, uh—what is it called?” and the baker looked at me in disbelief and said “That’s a baguette.”

God.

for the record, if that stupid bread had been flanked by a skinny bread (ficelle) and a fat one (flute) then yeah of course I would have known to call it a baguette, but in the absence of reference points I now felt lost and scared of being called a Parisian again

And it pissed me off so badly that I spent the ENTIRE WORK DAY today compiling evidence from every project my team has ever done for her, pulling past emails she’d sent us, putting together an entire case proving that she had been the problem all along. That she got projects mixed up, that she’d made requests that were nonsensical, literally everything you could possibly imagine. Screenshots of emails, reports we’d submitted, EVERYTHING.

This woman in particular has been terrorizing my team for years, her name is almost a slur in my office, I had simply had ENOUGH of her.

I put all of this evidence together and sent it to all of my bosses at 4:30pm. Then I took a long break to eat a sweet treat and drink some tea.

After my break, my bosses all called in an emergency meeting with me and they said they read my report and fucking loved it. And I sat on a teams call with my boss’ boss as she wrote my nemesis the scathing email I had always fantasized about sending, using the evidence I’d compiled, and hit send.

It demonstrates that piracy has always lay at the heart of media preservation; and

watching the clock and SWEATING because he doesn't have rozanov's number atp obviously so he can't text "HEY MY MOM IS HERE. CANCEL IT. CANCEL IT ALL. DO NOT COME UP HERE.", but yuna can read that Something is up with shane, so she's even less likely to want to leave him, so she's actually stretching this out LONGER trying to figure out if shane is just really nervous about this new brand or something and honey, did someone say something today? do i need to kill someone?

and shane is pulling out EVERY ounce of deception he has never consciously had to use on his mom before to just get her OUT. he doesn't even have time to fuck around with his outfit because he needs her to GO. in a moment of ABSOLUTE fucking desperation he says he feels sick and retreats to the bathroom and pours some water in the toilet so it sounds like he's puking, but he WAY overshot this one because now no WAY is she leaving.

which means ilya still knocks on the door.

and it's YUNA who answers.

ilya's whole body takes a screenshot.

and shane in the bathroom atp heard the door open, so he almost hits himself in the face with the bathroom door trying to get out and do...

what, exactly?

so they're now in this WILD three way standoff, and yuna is being polite about it but is clearly 'what the FUCK are you doing here?' and shane genuinely for a moment thinks his mom is about to find out that he was not only about to have sex, but he was about to have GAY SEX.

nope.

"sorry, i forgot i asked if he wanted to come up later and watch the game"

"what game is on tonight?"

*shane aol dial-up noises*

ilya jumping in because oops guess this is a group project now, taking a WILD swing in the dark based on something that was on a tv in a bar he snuck into a couple of weeks ago: "uh, cars. car racing."

"you two are going to watch...nascar?"

ilya, has never heard the word nascar in his life: "yes. sounds very interesting. i love...nascars."

yuna ends up leaving the room so they can...watch?? nascar???....but also shane has never been less turned on in his fucking LIFE.

they actually do end up talking because now shane is paranoid his mom is going to be in the hall watching and waiting to catch him in a lie, and the more nervous he gets about it, the more lowkey ilya is worrying about it, too, so they do actually end up spending a chunk of time together.

but now shane is trapped in pretending to like nascar because his mom asked how watching it with rozanov was, and he's like, "...really fun! yeah, it was exciting. they, um, they go really fast."

now shane who doesn't give a FUCK about cars beyond Thing That Takes Me Places is stuck in summer watching fucking nascar with his mom. and david clocks that shane isn't into it, but he figures that maybe yuna? has found an interest in it after the topic came up? so shane is bonding with her over that? aw, how sweet.

yuna teasing him about danica patrick being too old for him so don't get any ideas, and shane is just How Did This Happen To Me.

poor guy just wanted to explore gay sex and now he's doing a photo op in jimmie johnson's car???

the idea of shane being SO fucking annoyed that he has to go to this shit only to get there and learn that instead of a swedish princess, he gets to hang out with very strong men who move heavy car parts around for a living who are EXTREMELY competent and good at what they do

the high of getting to be around very fast cars and the low of knowing that shane is going to get to say hi to a handsome and very strong and capable man he has slept with before

his name is darren, and it is a modern miracle that he is alive when ilya is so constantly killing him with his mind.

the worst part? HE'S A GENUINELY GOOD GUY.

he's so friendly and warm and makes shane laugh and is polite and yes ma'am and no sir, AND he's hot? and good at what he does? he is proficiently doing pit tire changes fast as a motherfucker and showing off how good he is at his job RIGHT IN FRONT OF ILYA'S SHANE???

does shane PREFER that his parents find out he's seeing a guy this way? no.