Free Grateful by Kim Fielding

Y OU KNOW those times when you’re goofing off at work, and instead of rocking your spreadsheet or selling widgets, you’re surfing for stupid GIFs? The ones where some idiot body-slams a cactus, or drives into a swimming pool, or walks face-first into a glass door. Really funny, right? Way better than writing your boss another report on quarterly toilet paper usage, or whatever it is you’re getting paid to do.
    But here’s the thing: I’m that idiot.
    Okay, not all the time. I’m not responsible for all the stupidity on the Internet. Just more than my fair share.
    I don’t plan to be that guy you see ramming a forklift into the shelving. It’s just that I tend to act first and think later. Plus, I’m naturally a klutz. Add to that an unfortunate tendency to pick friends who egg me on for comedic effects and, well, there I am. Climbing on the roof and pretending to be Batman, but then skidding off and landing on my ass. Taking a dare to eat a whole habanero. Riding down a really steep hill on some kid’s tricycle.
    That last one? That’s how I ended up with the cast on my arm, the limp, the black eye, and the stitches on my chin. The trip to the ER wasn’t so bad; they all know me there. They’re threatening to give me a punch card—make ten visits, get the eleventh for free—and I’m not sure they’re kidding. Besides, two of the doctors are drool-worthy younger guys, and a third has that whole DILF thing going, with that sexy silvering in his perfect hair and just enough softness around the middle to make you daydream about squeezing him.
    But now the holidays are biting at my heels, and I look—and feel—like an extra from The Walking Dead . Which I suppose would be okay if the holiday in question were Halloween, but it isn’t. Nope, Hanukkah is fast approaching, which means I face a two-hour drive, followed by a flood of relatives who will want to know, in detail and repeatedly, why I’m looking so postapocalyptic. And although my family’s used to my ways, it’s kind of embarrassing for a thirty-year-old accounts receivable clerk to explain why he did a header over the handlebars of a trike.
     
     
    “D OES YOUR face hurt?” asked Julia.
    We were sitting in the break room, me with a huge coffee I’d probably end up spilling on my lap, and she with a Greek yogurt and a waiting stack of napkins. She knows me well.
    Julia is my office BFF. Her cubicle is right next to mine, and we spend a lot of time bitching about work or moaning over men or discussing Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic. She ships Buffy and Angel, while I’m all about the Spander, but I love her anyway.
    I pressed a finger to my puffy eye. “Ow. Yeah, it’s sore. And I’m gonna end up with a scar on my chin.”
    She shrugged. “It’ll be sexy. Like Harrison Ford.”
    That should have perked me up. Harrison Ford tends to do that for me. Instead, I sighed. When she raised her eyebrows, I sighed again. “Hanukkah,” I explained.
    “Oh God. You’re having another shopping crisis.”
    I am famous for giving gifts that are the wrong size, the wrong color, the wrong flavor. I don’t mean to; it just happens. But now I shook my head. “I have grown wiser. Everyone’s getting a gift card this year.”
    “Good choice. But then why the drama, Nate?”
    “It’s… a holiday.”
    Julie licked thoughtfully at her clear plastic spoon, then pointed it at me. “I thought Hanukkah wasn’t a big deal. You told me that, in fact. You said it’s a minor holiday that people only make a fuss over because it happens to be near Christmas.”
    “True.”
    “So…?”
    “So I still have to go or everyone will get pissed off. And when I show up, I’m going to have to deal with this.” I gestured with my uninjured arm to indicate the cast, the stitches, and the bruising. “Mom and Dad are gonna lecture me like I’m eight years old. My sibs are gonna chime in. And when that topic gets old, my love life will be up for discussion.” Lack