Hush Money
I made questionable food choices in my 21 years of life. I religiously ascribe to the five-second-rule, and at the grossed out looks I explain that it will boost my immunity. I am ready for the next human plague. I figure if it’s been left out for over a day, unless it is a dairy product it is probably fine. Maybe a little stale, but fine. I am immune to most stomach bugs thanks to our poor city water back in Tennessee (which also has lead in it now), and I lived on a farm. Dust-covered hot dogs and hamburgers were the norm.
I am not a picky eater.
There is, however, a limit to what I will put into my piehole.
Raisins, for one. God do I hate raisins. The texture, the taste, there is nothing good about a sun-shriveled grape. You want a grape? Eat a grape, then. Don’t dehydrate it and put it on a salad.Goddamn abomination.
Milk and Cheese. Once, I got a jug of milk at the C-Store so I could cook some stroganoff and it came out that jug as a solid. The smell. The clunk of it against my stainless steel sink. My roommate, who was also the RA, came in to see what I had dropped from the thunk it made and asked to see the bottle.
“Is that milk?” Cloud asked. Cloud was a quiet and skinny man, and was just as serious as I am not. His real name really was Cloud, and he hated to be compared with the anime character of the same name and same stringy blond hair. He always wore blue, and loved sky colors and patterns. A coincidence reminiscent of the cartoons he drew as an animation major.
“Not anymore.” I ran water over it to dissolve it down the drain.
“Is it expired?” He asked as he reached for the bottle.
“I ain’t stupid, look at the bottle.” I handed it to him. It still had one day.
“That’s a health code violation. You need to report that before it expires.”
We did, taking a picture and sending it to the company that sends SCAD milk jugs.
The final thing I cannot allow to pass through my lips is fish. This originated at SCAD as well, and I have the emails to prove it. This was how I got my first hush money.
It was the spring of 2016. The sun was setting, the frogs were screaming, and I was too tired to make my own dinner. So, I walked to the infamous Hive, where on occasion I consumed some shady meals but more often than not they overkilled on salt or undercooked the chicken. Tonight, they served fish, and the line of over-excited freshman was shorter than usual.
Now I don’t like fish in the first place. Sushi I can handle, but cooked it just tastes too fishy for me. But, I was doing my best to be a healthy human being, and part of that was eating the stupid fish. So I sucked it up and got catfish. It was the only meat option anyway. Catfish, and pasta with red sauce. I ate the pasta first, because while the Hive’s pasta is mediocre, it’s normally the best thing they have on the menu. And I really, really didn’t want to eat the catfish.
Fishy like underwear you find beneath your bed after a month. Stringy like my hair during finals. My tastebuds screamed in agony and I held my nose to block the taste from my mouth. But this was the last time. The. Last. Time.
Something caught in my mouth. Something slimy and definitely not a fish. Sensory processing decided fuck this and I spat it out lest I gag and puke all over the table. I couldn’t do that to the Hive’s employees. I’m sure they don’t get paid enough to deal with my sensory shit. I look down at the thing that I did not expect and low and behold- a worm. A small, white, dead worm.
Growing up, I dedicated myself to 4-H, an agricultural program- one of the few highlights of living in Tennessee. My family works in agriculture all across the state. Each one has a district and one of the districts was led by a family friend who I saw as a second father. I asked him if he knew someone who could identify whether the worm was a parasite or not. Of course he could. One lab result later, and it turned out to be a roundworm. This is why we deworm and medicate our food, people. So I told my roommate (the RA) about it, and he sent in a health report to SCAD.
SCAD replied the same evening.
I don’t remember the exact wording of the email, but basically they messaged me saying that they were sorry that I found a worm in the food and that if I went down to the hive office they would compensate me. Well, I was hoping for maybe a free meal plan or some dining dollars, or a small amount off my tuition for that year because fuck it parasites are one of the biggest nopes you can pull in food, but no.
It was another sunny afternoon, the kind of muggy like breath gathered in a ski mask. Fresh out of class, I walked over to the office, ready.
So this poor young adult opens the door. Freshly styled hair, white collared shirt that’s been awkwardly ironed so there exists an oddly-shaped crease over his nipple, a belt that’s too big and pants that only old people and people who want to impress old people wear. I’m assuming it’s the latter because he was a young lad. I tell him I'm here about the worm and he leads me to a dimly lit room in the back, and closes the door behind me.
This is it this is how I’m going to die SCAD’s gonna kill me to keep me quiet were my actual thoughts upon seeing this dark back room with a desk and a computer and messy files. At least Cloud knows where I am right now. Avenge me, Cloud. Maybe I should have been a Dramatic Writing major.
A young woman comes to me, curvy and curly-haired with the same nervous smile on her ruby lips. She reminded me of a waitress who got an order wrong. Or me, when I was a waitress, 100% of the time.
“You’re Sydnee, right? You’re here about finding a worm in the Hive?” She asked me.
“Yeah.”
“We have something for you,” she reaches over and I am ready for a pistol to be pulled out of the file cabinet but because I am still alive, I am obviously not dead. On the outside. She pulls out a meal card out of a stack of them- just one- and hands it to me with manicured nails.
“Here you go. We really are sorry.”
It was a meal card to the Hive.
They didn’t make me sign anything about keeping quiet about it, nor was I ever contacted again. Lost in a line of disgruntled, endangered students.
And that was how I received my first hush money.
And I’ll be anything but hush about it.
