It was a simple question. I brought the director’s commentary.

My manager just asked me if I had a moment to review a document. A simple question. A yes or no question. My brain does not do yes or no. It does a full forensic analysis of the subtext.

Okay, ‘a moment’ is a subjective unit of time. Does he mean right this second? Because my calendar says I have a dentist appointment in forty-five minutes, which means I need to leave in thirty, and before that I have to send a follow-up about the Q3 budget projections, which I haven’t done because I got stuck in a research hole about the historical market performance of artisanal dog food.

If I say ‘yes,’ he’ll assume I have an open-ended block of time and I’ll be late for the dentist, which will cost me a fifty-dollar cancellation fee. If I say ‘no,’ he’ll think I’m not a team player. Or that I’m overwhelmed. Which I am, but you can’t say that.

He’s just standing there, holding his laptop, his expression shifting from ‘neutral’ to ‘mildly concerned.’ The silence is getting loud. My heart is trying to punch its way out of my ribcage. So I just open my mouth and a waterfall of context comes out.

‘Yes, of course, but just to manage expectations, I have a hard stop in thirty minutes for a dental cleaning that I rescheduled twice, so I have to pay a fee if I miss it again, and I still need to send that budget email to Finance, but I can definitely give you my full attention for about fifteen to twenty solid minutes right now, is that enough time?’

He just blinks. ‘It’s one paragraph.’

Oh. Right. And now I’m just standing here, engine still running at a thousand miles an hour, my face hot with the shame of having built an entire verbal fortress around a single paragraph. He’s already reading it. I’m just watching the back of his head, wishing the floor would swallow me whole.