FRIDAY, 4 AUGUST, 2000, PHILADELPHIA

The Marquis has left the building. A rather sudden and unexpected last day at work. The details are too vague and confusing even now that it’s all over. While freedom and sweet, sweet unemployment is delicious upon the lips, there is a gritty aftertaste due to bizarre, undisclosed circumstances. In addition to feeling confused and somewhat dissed, I am currently suffering from a rather hideous stomach somethin’ that beckons me to the toilet to spew my aristocratic vomit up with hacking coughs. Picture this: The Marquis, a little shakey on the feet, but more or less functional today (as opposed to yesterday when monosyllables proved to be tongue-twisters), having become suddenly aware that his last day at work was bumped up a week for god-knows-what-reason, decides that his Final Friday™ can either be a Creepy Day® or a Cake Day©. Naturally, he chooses the latter, and pulls himself out of his deathbed on Thursday evening to bake chockychip cookies. Fridays in the summer at a college are desolate days, and the Marquis sits at the desk, surfing waves of lingering nausea amidst his delicious-tasting cookies that are not moving fast enough because no one is there to eat them. So he sullenly nibbles on a farewell cookie, gets it down the throat and five minutes later sprints to the loo to hurl it back up. That, my lovlies, is my anticlimactic end to the one and only full-time job I have ever taken — and may ever take. I have no more to say on the subject save for this à propos montage…