Page 41 of Sportsball is for Lovers

fourteen

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Jared

This fucking intern.

“I don’t know what happened, Jared,” the twenty-year-old kid says with big, round eyes. “The prompter must have failed.”

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. The only way my entire segment’s prompt copy should have failed was if the text file was deleted.

Once I upload my text to the server, it’s his job to feed it into the teleprompter so I can see it on air. Instead, I got to ad-lib an entire segment and then cut to commercial early, which costs the station money.

“Aviyente,” my boss calls from across the floor. “A word.”

This is the third time Todd the intern has messed up and it’s directly impacted me—in the last three weeks. My role does not include supervising him, nor does it involve any sort of management or mentoring.

But for the third time in three weeks, I’m getting reamed for something he did. I’m a lucky scapegoat. I’ve been in this role for a few years and I’m due for a raise. Or I would be, if the intern didn’t keep messing up my segment, making me look like a fool on air.

Gen has her I Mean Business face on, which means nothing good is going to happen.

And as I sit there, letting her detail the myriad ways in which I’ve fucked up over the last six months, I feel my soul shrivel up and die inside of me.

I don’t need to be berated. I fucked up my broadcast by ad-libbing through it. I know it. She doesn’t have to tell me fifteen different ways; once was enough, twice is plenty.

I’ve been doing this long enough to read the writing on the wall.

So when she reams into me… I check out.

“I think it’s best if we part ways,” Gen says.

“Do you want this to happen now, or at the end of the season?” I ask mildly.

It’s the end of March, but Denver’s season is pretty much done in the next four weeks, anyway. There’s not a snowball’s chance in Arizona that they can win every single one of the seventeen remaining games to make it into playoff contention. Gretzky, Datsyuk, Orr, Crosby, AND Bergeron combined couldn’t do it. Denver? They don’t stand a chance.

Gen glares at me. “I think we’re done here,” she says. “HR will be in touch.”

She presses a button on the phone. “Can I get security up here, please?”

Ten minutes later, I’m escorted out of the building and my press pass is revoked.

I don’t know what to do. Do I just… go home?

I want to get drunk. I want to completely eat until my face goes numb and my stomach hurts and I forget about everything.

But if I were to do that, I’d probably end up in the hospital in a diabetic coma, so…

Not going to happen. Not today, at least.

Instead, I check my glucose reader on my phone.

My numbers aren’t bad. I can probably tolerate a greasy burger and fries, just not the milkshake I’d like to go with them.

I look at the numbers again.

Okay, I should probably try a chicken sandwich instead of the burger.

Hitting up the drive-through, I send my brother a text. Called it.