Working for other people sucks.

We really do want to hit our numbers now.

I mean, work doesn't always completely suck. A cute-ish male co-worker told me that when I wear my hair down, he wants "caramel sundaes and flan and shit." (The silver-tongued devil!) L'Ailee's already compared my hair to caramel sauce since I got it lightened a touch, but I thought it was just because she was hungry, as always. I teased him, acted like I was going to put my hair up with a pencil since "I don't ever want to tempt anybody to do the wrong thing," and he was like, "No, no, you don't need to do that!" Then I just smiled and thanked him for making my day.

Not every man in my office bothered to make an effort to be sweet, though. We have executives from another company trying to get a deal dealt with ours (I can't be very specific, of course.) Being a mere assistant, I know there's some nonsense I need to put up with, but there was tons of yelling and bellowing, which I hate. (I put up with enough of that growing up.) My voice just goes softer when I hear that around me; I can't scream back, so I undercut it. (I think I learned that from L'Ailee. It's a bit more intimidating when she does it, though, as she's a contralto.) One of the worst execs really pissed me off today. The sumbitch IMITATED MY DAMN VOICE!

I felt like I was between the sword and the wall. Couldn't cuss him, couldn't let him go on thinking he could treat me that way. I had an absolute mental flash, though, thankfully. I played ignorant and asked him if he needed one of my cough drops, since he seemed to be losing his voice. One of his peers and all of our own execs chuckled a bit, and I could go on with what I needed to do.

That doesn't compare to what L'Ailee dealt with, though. As I've said, she teaches middle-school girls gymnastics as her second job. She's used to a bit of parental complaining--all the instructors at that center are--but right now, she's extremely sad and angry. One of the twelve-year-olds kept a diary, the old-fashioned paper and pen kind. Her mom found it; in it, the girl talked about her crush on my wife. The mother decided to complain today. After all, the girl was "normal" until L'Ailee "broke" her, right?

The mother accused L'Ailee of trying to influence girls, and was triple-ripple pissed when L'Ailee's response was "Oh, really? That's so cute!" She looked to see what she might have done "wrong", but all she's done is be a good teacher and interesting to look at where a hormonal girl could see her! L'Ailee feels that if it wasn't her, it would've been an actress or a teacher at her school or a girl in her class, and I agree totally.

The mother wants to pull her out of that gymnastics class; L'Ailee feels awful for that poor little girl, but isn't in the mood to stop the mother. Her supervisor is backing my wife up and is adamant that she's done nothing wrong, even asked the mom what she'd do if L'Ailee was a straight man (answer--nothing!), but L'Ailee doesn't know if she can handle that mother's attitude.

It's working out. We took care of the idiots. But still. We just held each other on the couch and went to sleep for a few hours tonight. L'Ailee's upstairs in the bed like a sane woman now, but once again, I'm having a hard time sleeping.