Forty seconds

The stopwatch in the back of my head goes off the moment she starts yelling at me, hurls the comforter aside, jumps out of bed and makes to the bathroom in three, maybe four quick strides. This is a rather nasty habit I came up with a while ago, that I mentally time how long it takes for girls to get out of my place and swear never to see me again.
She hits the astounding 40-second mark by the time she gets to the elevator, now fully changed and her backpack in her hands.

Either Cupid's definitely off-duty tonight or it's just gotta be some goodamn new world record or something: Forty seconds to end a two-week relationship.

Forty seconds, that's what it took this time around: From the onset of the incident (whatever that incident is, mind you) to the classic looking over her shoulder through a half-closed elevator door--"And I never want to see you again!"-- hesitating to see if I'm following her, begging for her forgiveness, that kinda stuff -- and it is half past one in the morning after all.

I stand in the doorway saying nothing but flinch once I realize we've left the TV on in the living room before going to bed, and now TCM is showing Ferris Bueler's Day Off-- and I'd so rather watch Ferris Bueler's Day Off instead of humoring skirt for a kowtow tonight-- and it's so cold outside-- so I simply don't, and I watch her disappear as the elvator door closes.

Then Cameron says something funny in the movie.
And Ferris says something funny in the movie.
And Ferris' gal says something funny in the movie, too, only I never remember her name-- which is something I only realize after the movie's over-- and probably speaks volumes of my current predicament.

But it's so easier not to face it, so I turn off the TV and go to sleep anyhow.