Sarah
When Sarah left work on Friday, she felt invigorated. It was the kind of Friday where everything felt electric and the weekend seemed full of possibility. That was a benefit of having a job you hate—when you leave, it feels like being set free. It really makes a person want to “grab the bull by the horns,” “live life to the fullest,” “carpe diem,” and all those other things people say but never really mean. Today, Sarah meant them. Before she could “seize the day” she decided to eat dinner.
She let herself into her apartment, changed out of her work clothes and looked in the refrigerator. She contemplated putting together a salad, but she was worried that would get in the way of her making the most of her evening. She opted for leftover Chinese food instead. She had a life to live and didn’t have time to deal with chopping vegetables and tossing them in dressing.
Her dining room table was cluttered with things she would get to later so she curled up on the couch. She decided to put on Netflix to watch one episode of Breaking Bad while she ate. It was all people were talking about at work, and it seemed like an efficient use of her time to catch up a little bit. Multitasking.
By the time the episode ended, her leftover rice was gone. Netflix began to auto-play the next episode before she could decide what to do. One more episode couldn’t hurt, she figured. There’d still be plenty of diem left to carpe in an hour.