* * *
The doctor takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. Janet, he says, I think you’re going to do great. That’s not so bad, as last words go, so I take the prescription and leave, for once doing as I’ve been told.
The only thing I can’t shake are these mandatory meetings. Like I didn’t already have enough problems with Christmas being mandatory. Like that wasn’t the entire problem.
On my way home, I start thinking of the long list of things I have to do that I don’t want to. First I had to go to the doctor, which I avoid doing for obvious reasons, many of them involving having my boob squeezed longer and harder than appropriate. Next I have to go to the pharmacy, which I don’t even mind that much; they have plenty of fun stuff there too, like tampons and lip balm and candy. And the people there tend to act shifty, so I relate.
And now I also have to go to meetings. Which is what really makes me anxious. I don’t like meeting people I know, let alone new people.
That’s three things I don’t want to do, all in order to do something I don’t want to do. It’s like someone punching you in the vagina and telling you your jeans are all wrong.
I can already feel my legs turning to lead at the prospect of it all. It’s almost worth stepping in front of a car—not to kill myself, you understand, just to cripple myself. But then someone would just wheel me around to all those places, and with my luck it’ll be Melissa or my mother, not some hot nurse. So I’ll just have to drag my leaden legs there myself.
I thought I wanted to be in control, but now I just want to let go of it all. To have someone else do the work. I feel defeated.
Happy fucking Christmas, Janet. Maybe someone will give me back myself as a gift.
11
We, the Janets, were the first ones they told about the pills. And once we’d signed our lives away, or at least the next few months, the rest of the world was apparently allowed in on it.
Facebook ads, TV and radio ads, bus wraps—all of it popped up overnight. All the usual tricks when they want you to want something. All I ever want is a nap.
Now, everyone’s talking about it. Santa’s Little Helper, they’re calling it on the street. Some are saying it’s just ketamine cut with candy canes. Others say it’s magic mushrooms and baby aspirin. It looks like any other pill, only this one comes gift-wrapped—because it’s a gift. Not for you, though, but for the world, because you’ll be less of a miserable fuck, and that’s the best gift you can give.
There are several online commercials, all subtly different. One with a girl, one with a guy, and one with someone ethnically confusing who I think is supposed to represent the LGBTQ community. There’s one that I’m starting to think was made just for me. It shows a girl who looks exactly like me, but with better skin, shinier hair, more expensive jeans—jeans that fit, that is, instead of what I wear, which are not those newly ironic mom jeans, but the unintentional ones.
In the ad, this better version of me is sitting in her apartment watching TV, just like I am now, only her apartment is obviously much nicer than mine. For authenticity they have a pizza box open on the table, even though this girl only eats seven almonds a week. Her world is black and white, which seems intended as a signal for depression but actually makes her look like she’s in a cool French movie, waiting for her cue to say something amazing through the haze of a cigarette (not pictured). She is definitely getting laid. And yet, somehow, we’re meant to gather that this girl has, you know, let herself go. I’m sure there’s a zit on her somewhere, but no one else can see it.
Do you want a happy Christmas, says a voiceover lady, but feel like you’ll never have one? Are you currently resisting everyday antidepressants but still want a joyful holiday?
If I hadn’t already signed up, I might have dropped my Hot Pocket.
Try it now, the voiceover lady says, and you’ll have no long-term serious health problems—and no more aversion to fun, family, and festivities!
On the screen, Model Me is still looking chic but miserable on her couch. I am wondering about the pizza, which she has clearly never touched. What will become of it after the shoot? Will she throw it out? Will the crew get any? I am worried for it.
In clinical trials, the voiceover lady says, seven out of ten people with moderate to severe malaise saw seventy-five percent improvement in their ability to enjoy the holidays and return to their normal disposition with no significant side effects.
At the bottom of the screen, four words flash quickly: your results may vary. The pamphlet I was given has a lot of small print like that. It says Be sure to speak to your doctor a lot, like he’s really lonely.
Now Model Me is getting up to answer the door. She doesn’t even ask who it is, just opens the door, and there’s a guy there holding a big gift in front of him, his midsection obscured by a big shiny bow. I start to wonder if I’ve accidentally switched to an adult channel.
The delivery guy doesn’t say anything, just hands over the box. She doesn’t have to sign for it, doesn’t ask if he’s even slightly a serial killer. She just takes the box and goes back to the couch, like an idiot. We watch her unwrap the gift, pull out some pills, and react with a kind of glazed wonder. She doesn’t even read the label, just downs a pill and smiles. Without any water. Not even a Diet Coke, like I’m sure she has in her model fridge.
As soon as she’s taken the pill, her world changes to color. Off we go, subjected without consent to a montage of her doing fun holiday stuff, climaxing with footage of her not just surviving but actually enjoying Christmas dinner with her family. No one gets stabbed with a fork.
Hanukkah and Kwanzaa versions available! it says at the bottom of the screen, even as the whole family is knee-deep in Christmas.
Talk to your doctor today about—, says the voiceover lady, and I switch off. I don’t even change the video, just turn the whole thing off. Thanks for ruining YouTube, I say to no one. This ad is all the proof I need to know they’ve been watching me—not just watching but studying me, and instead of thinking, Wow, that Janet’s so smart, let’s hack her stem cells to make a magic Janet elixir, they said, See, that’s a problem, and they made me this pill.
Of course I couldn’t keep away from the internet forever, so before long I’d seen all the commercials—all the variations, made for every Janet. My favorite is the one with the sad sexy widower, a hot dad who’s worried he can’t give his little girls a magical Christmas, because Mummy is dead. But it’s okay! There’s a pill for that too.
* * *
Back in the real world, Debs tells me there’s a new dog in the boarding kennels. He was brought in late last night by one of those cops I always think Debs is sleeping with, though really I know she’s not because like all of us, she has willed herself to have vagina dentata after realizing how disappointing men are.
The dog was found chained up in some man’s bathroom, Debs tells me, only it wasn’t on the news because it wasn’t a missing girl. They were doing a narcotics raid and there he was. He’d been kicked about a bit but mostly ignored. His owner was going to prison, but not for the right reason.
She takes me to see him. He’s a surprisingly friendly little guy. A complete mutt, maybe a bit of every breed, scruffy hair, straight out of some dumb movie. The trust he shows us is heartbreaking. Is he like this with men? I ask, because I wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to kill every man he sees (I get that way too sometimes), but he’ll be harder to rehome (ditto).
He was fine with the cop, Debs says. How were you with the cop? I want to ask, but I know better. He could be one of her kids’ fathers, for all I know. Instead I ask, What’s the dog’s name? The cop says the perp just called him fucker, she tells me, so she’s calling him Tucker. Most of the dogs we get in are called Max, so we’re old pros at renaming dogs.
Tucker, I say, and the little fella wags his tail at me, and it’s lovely if you forget that just a few hours ago he
was chained up in some crackhead’s den.
We keep dogs like Tucker up in the boarding block because it’s nicer there. People are paying us to look after their dogs, so it has to be nice. The other dogs are supposed to just be glad they have a roof over their heads, even if it’s a bit leaky. Truth is, I hate dealing with boarders—not so much the dogs, though they can be pretty spoiled, but their people. You have to accept that people might have to leave a dog behind once in a very long while—if their mum is in the hospital, maybe—but most of these people seem like they’re just jetting off somewhere to work on their tan, and that’s extra shitty. Part of us always hopes they’ll never come back to collect their dogs, so that we can find them a nicer home with people who want to take them away on holiday.
So I go about my business getting Tucker settled in. I’m barely recognizable as a human in my work clothes, and I’m fine with it, even though Melissa’s always looking at me like she’s planning a makeover for my face and clothes and soul. People so rarely see me out of my work clothes that when they do, it’s like some rom-com body-swap hell, with people saying things like, Don’t you scrub up well, or We didn’t know what was under there. Melissa is always trying to jazz up her clothes, with varying degrees of success on her part and nausea on ours. She tried to belt her waterproof jacket so people would know she has a waist under all that, that she’s still a woman, though I don’t know what that even means. She says she does it for herself—the hair styles, the lip gloss—but she can’t fool us. She still believes someone will come along to save her if they see her. I see her, but it’s not enough.
She always looks like she’s on the verge of a mental breakdown, and Debs can’t deal with it. This is a place of work, Melissa, Debs says in a tone she usually reserves for her kids when they’ve puked on something.
Melissa’s Wellington boots have flowers on them. I only comb my hair if I have to, and I don’t really have to.
I have issues with my body like most humans, and I like that my work clothes allow me to forget I even have a body, at least until I need to pee. I was the same way at school. Other kids couldn’t wait to get home and change into their play clothes, but I would skulk home, crash out in my uniform, trying my best to play at being someone else. Dressing yourself is exhausting; having to think about your body is exhausting. I don’t want to look good, I just want to be comfortable.
Which is exactly what I do next: after working all day without thinking another minute about clothes, I go home and fall into bed, fully dressed, work boots and all, like a hobo. This is a luxury. There’s nobody to impress, no expensive jeans to peel off, no phony pizza box to leave a stain. When the boyfriend was still there, I used to come home and hop in the shower, put on fresh sweats, and pretend to be a person, for him mostly. Now I’m free to be a blob, free to be a hobo—free to be anything.
12
I love October. It’s a good month. It makes me the closest to happy a month can make anyone. It’s always Halloween in my heart.
Christmas is already breathing down on me, though, like a man I don’t know in a bar, a man who doesn’t know I have a flick knife. The knife is real—I have it for work, and Debs has one too. Sometimes, when dogs come in that have been taken from bad people, the bad people come looking for them, and these two knife-wielding thirtysomething women in fleeces and wellies are prepared. I mostly use mine for eating apples because I’m trying to eat healthy while preserving my status as a badass. Sometimes I catch Melissa watching me, wishing she could be that cool, wishing we’d let her have a knife, but we can’t risk her turning on us one day. This place will do that. I’ve seen perfectly good dogs come in and after a week they want to bite your arm off. We don’t blame them. We still try to see the best in them, find them a good family that look like they need to care about something.
The pill ads have been getting more intense. This one’s a full-on infomercial. In the first shot, a woman in a power suit is walking through a busy mall at Christmas. No one is looking at her like, Who the fuck does their shopping in a power suit? No old woman stops her to say, I haven’t seen shoulder pads like that since the eighties and it’s bringing back a lot of feelings! No kids are scrambling around the mall, trying to get in the shot or trip her up.
This time it’s a voiceover man, not a voiceover lady, who does the honors:
Here at MedsForLife, we know the holidays can be a time of stress, not just relaxation. Whether you love the season or hate it, you can’t avoid it! And your brain needs protection. Here at MedsForLife, we’ve created something wonderful. Something that will allow you to enjoy that time of year again.
Life is hard. We get it. Just look at the news. But that shouldn’t stop you enjoying your least favorite time of year. You deserve it.
You deserve Christmas.
It’s basically a Viagra ad: We can help you get it up for Santa.
Then they bamboozle you with science. Scene: a man in a white lab coat obscuring the cages of weeping rats. One of them turns to the camera and says, We’ve found Christmas in your brain! Hooray! We can fix you now. Whenever you’re ready! he leers.
Then there are diagrams and more people in white lab coats, pointing at things with sticks, forgetting that’s what Hitler did. Standing oh so carefully before the cages of weeping rats they’ve tested, forgetting rats don’t know what Christmas is, and if they did, they wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about it, would they? Isn’t that where that comes from?
But then the screen fills with facts and diagrams and lots of small print, whizzing up and over the screen. Speak to your doctor about it today! Better still, tell your doctor about your friend who’s a buzzkill and we’ll medicate them for you! It’s that easy. Sign here. And then, in that anxious disclaimer voice: We have nothing to do with the devil, and we can’t help if your family are a bunch of racists. But give us your email so we can stay in touch! We’re working on a pill for that too.
But that’s not all. It’s an infomercial—it keeps going. After years of research we’ve found how festive spirit works in your brain, the man in the white coat says, pointing at a picture of the brain, in case you forgot what that is. Part of the brain is lit up with the word joy. The holidays are a time of joy . . . or they should be, he says, cocking an eyebrow. And this influences the chemicals in your brain that affect happiness.
You know these chemicals, don’t you?
A little cartoon elf pops up. Hi! I’m Dopamine! he says, horrifically. I like rewards and pleasure!
Another elf pops up. Hi! I’m Serotonin, she says. I like self-worth and belonging!
Together we make Christmas cheer! they say, high-fiving.
The man in the white coat is talking again now.
Participants in our study were shown holiday-themed images, and by studying their brains, we’ve been able to identify the most active centers of brain activity. These very areas here!
(He points to areas labeled SENSORY MOTOR CORTEX, PREMOTOR and PRIMARY MOTOR CORTEX, and PARIETAL LOBULE.)
These areas of the brain are related to our spirituality, our senses, and our empathy. In short, we now know how the holiday season affects the brain. But that’s not all! We didn’t stop there. Many people find the holidays stressful. All that pressure to have the picture-perfect family gathering when your family are jerks!
(He doesn’t say jerks but I hear jerks.)
Under stress, your body releases adrenaline and cortisol, harsh and unkind chemicals that make this trying time of year even more trying. It’s hard to imagine the festive period without thinking of your family and friends, but not everyone has good relationships. Maybe you’ve even lost a loved one?
(I get the feeling his wife definitely left him. Probably because his job is being a drug-peddling scientist on TV.)
But socializing is a huge part of Christmas, he says. It releases the hormone called oxytocin in the brain. Another elf pops up: Hi! I’m Oxytocin
! I’m that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you’re with people you love. These are the parts of the brain that our magical new pill targets, the man says, very pleased with himself. Think of your brain like a Christmas tree. Our pill will light it up for you! Which just sounds creepy to me.
Speak to your doctor today! he says. And then the side effects fill the screen.
* * *
I should switch off that ad when I see it, but I can’t. I’m transfixed. I keep hoping that if I watch it again that it’ll somehow make sense, that I’ll start believing in science, if not Christmas. But it hasn’t happened yet.
As of now, it’s still only Halloween, one holiday I’m glad people still celebrate. I’ve already watched The Craft ten times this year. Melissa wants to hang decorations, bats and shit. Debs keeps telling her the dogs don’t know what Halloween is, but Melissa says it’s for the humans. They have this fight about everything—Melissa reminding her about the humans and Debs shutting her down, regretting ever hiring her.
Halloween is also the last day before I’m supposed to start taking my meds, so really I should go out to some costume party, but I probably won’t. I’ll just stay in and pretend I’m not home like most nights. I’ll eat some candy, but I would have done that anyway. My boyfriend and I used to get invited out to those Halloween parties—Spooky drinks! or some such bullshit—but the invites were for him, really, and he knew I wouldn’t want to go. But he also knew it would be weird for him to go on his own, so instead of going we would just have a huge fight. I want to go, I would say, and he would try not to get his hopes up. I mean, if I was someone else, I would say, and he would try not to swear for about a minute and then we’d both start swearing together. It always ended up with me telling him he should just go, actually wanting him to go, so I could have some headspace, so that I could decide for myself what I wanted for dinner and what I wanted to watch on TV. But then he would never go. Relationships breed resentment, and toward the end, love is just a string of misunderstandings looping us together, confusing us enough to make us think it’s worth continuing for the sake of what came before. Misunderstandings like him thinking I wanted sex in the morning when all I wanted was a sandwich.
Sad Janet Page 8