The Broken Glass Blues

Friendship requires resignation

I work in a wine store part-time. The person I work for, J, is a friend of mine, but we became friends over the course of my working there. Before that we were barely acquaintances. What happened was I talked to J at a party in 2021 and he said “Hey I’m opening a wine store,” and I said “Hey I’d like to work in one extremely part-time, I don’t know a ton but I know enough not to totally embarrass myself or you.” This turns out in retrospect to be only partially true but J said, “You’re hired.”

Over the course of my two or so years working in the store I have probably broken five wine glasses. This amounts to about $15 or $20 worth of damage.

“Try $40,” J is saying as he reads this. “Try $55.”

I really like J. Our friendship is one of the better things to happen to me so far in this cursed decade. It is hard for me to make friends because I often feel I have to restrict certain parts of my personality. I do not have to do this around J. I can be mean or disgusting or petty or suicidal around him and he not only allows it he doesn’t even blink. Like I mean if I say to J “God I really felt like killing myself this week, I really was just like, why am I alive” he won’t even say “Oh my God I hope you’re feeling better,” or “That’s really rough,” he will instead say something like, “Well, it sounds like your week was a lot better than mine!”

You don’t find someone like that every day.