My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie They always said that lightning never strikes twice...they were wrong. Dead wrong. Twice on the week before Christmas, a drunk driver rammed some sort of truck or jeep into my neighbor's house, not even giving the poor girl enough time to repair the first hole in the wall. Both of my mother's cats got sick in one month with the same thing, though they turned out to be okay, if not a bit congested. A former boyfriend of mine won the lottery two years ago, only to buy another ticket and win an even bigger lottery after that. I knew people with a great deal of fortune and others with a shitload of bad luck. As for me, nothing seemed to really happen twice at all during my life. I had been broken up with once. I had gotten into a car accident once. I had even drunk enough beer to the point of severe intoxication once in my life - never again, especially after waking up with a four foot tall woman next to me. Until, one day, as it always appears to be, I hit the ...

The business headquarters is a small, squat little building nestled between a greasy sandwich shop and some sort of laundromat that is probably just a front for baking meth or selling cocaine, or both if the owners aren't picky. The door creaks when you open it, and when I say "creak," I mean it breathes as harshly as a dying man does when he's struggling to say his last words. There are only two desks in the entire office: The boss's, cluttered with cut-out newspaper coupons and a full cigarette ashtray - and mine.