Cake

I can no longer eat cake.

For three years . . . more if you count Floyd . . . I have been watching people leave the Program and each and every one of them gets caked. Today, Christine got bageled, but she's the rare exception.

And now, because it started with the first few, every one of the departing gets framed photos around which everyone signs, and plaques and figurines and parties and drinks after work. And we collect money for more presents and we sign cards and we are forced to pay witness . . . and eat the fucking cake.

And there have been so many -- hundreds of people leaving . . . seven last week alone -- that I can't do it anymore. I can't eat one more slab of cake.

And because there have been so many, none of it means anything. People receive their expected signed mat photo and they make a speech about how hard it is for them to leave the program and how special it has all been, and we all nod and smile -- and no one cares! The departing want to run out of the building and the rest of us are just fed up being left behind to somehow figure out how to keep it going.

I won't do it.

No more cake.