Dias Lament

Society is a myriad of proposed fantasies.
I know this better then most people, because most days I try to indulge myself in any shortcut to happiness I can find these days.

Perfect grades?  I think I've only talked about my grades to my 11th grade teacher after I ran into him after graduation at my 2nd customer service gig. It was a good flex at the time, but I can't say it's a great conversation point for something that matters, like a first date. Besides, grades don't really matter if you just skipped college entirely.

College Life? A secure future! Drowning in boys! The world is your oyster! Unless you have the attention span of a blind goldfish and you decided to become a "self-started ceo" ! I learned what a pyramid scheme was the hard way.

A wealthy husband? It turns out most wealthy men are not geniunely interested in minimum wage workers in their mid twenties. No matter what romance novels tell you.

Winning the lottery? Isn't there a higher chance of me being snapped like a twig by a flying shark who happened to sprout wings? I'd like to meet that shark.

Yeah. It's rough out here.

I was supposed to be an entrepreneur! A trendsetter! A beacon of the future!

And now...this trendsetter was a couple of missteps away from being sent back to live with her parents.

Yesterday, I had woken up to the cruelest twist of fate. Calling it a twist was an understatement. It was more so like a punch directly to the ribs. A wake-up slap seven times to the cheeks.

I was doing everything right, dammit! I had moved into my own apartment, got a humble supermarket managerial position and didn't even bother with a car because I was already testing somethings patience with how expensive LIVING was becoming. So, I stuck with public transportation to get to where I had to be.

And when I returned from a surprise 10 hour shift, I'd see a big yellow EVICTION NOTICE on my door.

You see...I haven't really been making enough money to pay my bills. My landlord was pretty relaxed about it everytime I groveled at their feet for more time, but I guess she was finally tired of it. Incredibly two-faced, but who was I to complain?

This is what I get for thinking that I could make a killing drop shipping doilies. Soft and comfortable? Yes! A sizable market? Nope.

The stress of it left me wanting to call out of work, crawl into my bed, and die. Although such a death would be an excellent metaphor for the crushing weight of living in a society that bleeds green-  missing out on work wouldn't help my issue at all, wouldn't it?

I told my mom and dad that they wouldn't have to worry. That I'd come home having made a difference in this world. Turns out the only difference you can make while living and working off minimum wage is if a customer leaves the market frowning or smiling. And how sober you are when midnight hits.

And even if I could pay it off in the future, this wouldn't be the 1st or last time I was in the red financially. Financial Stability seemed to ever evade me.

How bleak.

Going home would be so easy, but so humiliating. I hated this so much. I felt powerless. Embarrassed.And like I earned my 3rd shot of whiskey. I looked to my cellphone with teary eyes, once again contemplating if I should just give up and cry to my parents.

But, I still had my pride! I had already long decided that I was staying put until they dragged me out. I can find someway to pay up I just need to start looking for a better job...and beg again.

So, here I decided to look up job ads instead. It was the usual customer service, things that required you to have an actual degree from college and jobs that seemed so demanding and frightening I just delete them from my feed.

And that's when I saw a curious ad pop up from the corner of my eye:

[MONSTER PRESERVATION PROGRAM] Volunteer today to save the monster race!

The ad was stylized to have some multiple eyed cryptid shedding a cartoonishly large tear, with word art that was intimidatingly large. There was a URL sneaked in towards the bottom of the page, clearly using whatever space it had left to get as much information out as possible.
It was a pretty terrible looking ad.

Was it appropriate to just rope them all together as Monsters? I guess if I saw HUMAN PRESERVATION PROGRAM I wouldn't bat an eye to it. It was pretty easy to forget that Monsters existed in this world of ours. I rarely saw them in the part of the world I lived in and after the war, I was pretty sure they just integrated into society somewhere else. I won't deny that I'm a little ignorant about things like this, the ad read like a joke to me over something to take seriously. But this seemed like something total freaks would be into.

Nonetheless, seeing shady job ads was a great way to take my find off the nightmare that was currently my life and  it got quite the giggle out of me. So, I decided to give it a click and see what exactly they were looking for.

It only got more surreal.

---

[MONSTER BRIDE]
Posted by MPP Co.

Description:Volunteer today to save the monster race! The world of monsters is in turmoil and our organization is dedicated to preserving the longevity of monster kind that face extinction by integrating them into our society! You will be asked to offer your home and experiences to a monster citizen along with building a life with them!

Ideal Candidates:

-Single Females between the ages of 25 to 45.
-Have suitable DNA.
-Empathic and Prepared to take on a roommate.

---

Monster BRIDE?  They want you to MARRY a stranger? This was incredible. It was way too formally written and blunt. What woman would actually sign up for something like this? It's like they weren't even trying to veil how shady this sounded. I scrolled down to see what those benefits looked like.

Job Highlights:

Health Insurance

Lifetime Benefits

Generous Wage based on your needs ($3000~ /MO)

But, there was one last thing the application was looking for. DNA?

They wanted this part mailed to them. In two separate parts? Well sure. Okay.

So, I just yanked out one of my lil' hairs and pushed it delicately into a pure white envelope, dropped it into my beautifully organized "drop off at the post office" mail pile that I would mindlessly drop off when I was sober in the morning.

I hit send. And that was it. 

Honestly, I was hoping for something more whimsical to happen after all that work. But I laughed it off with glee and passed out before I could think to drink anymore.

This absolute dumbassery would somehow be the jumping point to the rest of my life and...how I met my husband.