Buzzfeed, Boys, Black Magic

pothead chivalry and slow sweet time

The morning light made Rafi's hair glow like spun gold.

"Lucky Charms was first produced in 1964," he set his phone on the kitchen table. He smirked at me, and crossed his arms with the authority of a man who had never lost a war. "I rest my case."

"What does that even prove?" I tied my left shoe.

"1964 was a peak period for normie drug use. Some advertising exec at General Mills consorted with hippies."

"Scurrilous," I tied my right shoe.

"Scurrilous?" Rafi's voice cracked into giggles. "Nobody would come up with a cereal leprechaun unless they were high."

"Dubious," I stood up. "So how am I going to get work?"

My car, after all, was still parked in the Newton Center's lot.

"Don't," Rafi lifted his arms out toward me. "Stay here."

"I need a job," I sat down on his lap.

"Not that job," Rafi said. "There's gotta be an observatory in California that need a lab assistant or something."

I shrugged.

"The ones attached to schools only really hire grad students enrolled at those schools."

"Well," Rafi said, "why don't you apply for grad school then?"

I shrugged.

"PhD programs are like, six years long. I mean, six years. What if I spend all that time- and come out the program not wanting to touch another telescope ever again?"

Rafi pursed his lips.

"Yeah, I get it," he said. "My frat brothers are going to Wall Street or landing internships in Washington or starting med school in September. I'm not career-oriented, you know? Like, I want a job so I can live. That's it."

"For not being career-oriented, you're going to be making a lot of money," I said, and thought about my twelve-fifty an hour. "Being an engineer or whatever."

This time Rafi shrugged. "I just want my Ashton Martin. Until then," He reached into his pocket, pulled out the keys to his beater Honda Civic and gently shook them. "Your ride awaits, space girl."

***

"Time is weird," Rafi reached across the console and squeezed my hand. "You don't realize things are changing until they already have."

"Pretty philosophical for you," I said.

"My grandma used to tell me that," Rafi squinted at the red light. I wondered what he was looking at. "The older I get, the more my life proves that to be true."

I didn't know what to say to that. So I said nothing.

"You know," the light turned green and Rafi tapped the gas. "I bet you took basically the same classes at school as me."

"Yeah, probably," I said. "Most of my courses were cross-listed with engineering."

"So why don't you apply to an entry-level engineering job?" He glanced at me. "You'd feel better about yourself if you actually got to use that beautiful brain of yours."

"I don't have an engineering degree-"

"You can do the work, though," Rafi said. "Better than I could."

"It doesn't matter. I don't have the degree. Who would hire me without the-"

"But you have a degree, a closely-related degree," Rafi argued. "We've got a STEM shortage, right? They'd be stupid not to at least give you an interview."