A Flurry of Follies: Jennifer Thorsten's Triumphant Tales of Relentless Wardrobe Misfortunes

"So you're the new girl?"

I was asked this question by a well-dressed man in his mid-fifties. His suit was finely tailored and expertly pressed. The fabric shone like a mirror. His shoes were polished to a near-mirror finish. A perfectly knotted tie hung around his neck. His eyes were sharp and intelligent. He had the look of someone who was at home anywhere he went, no matter how fancy or downmarket the surroundings might be. He looked like someone's father. I decided that he probably was someone's father.

"Yeah, that's right," I replied, trying to hide my embarrassment as I backed away from him, "but I'm not really a 'new' girl anymore."

I figured that he'd ask me this question, but I didn't expect to be so flustered by it. The truth is that I only started working here a few months ago. It wasn't my first job (that would be the one I got fired from for being late too many times) but it was my first real job, the one where you get paid more than minimum wage and have health insurance benefits if you ever need them. I really thought I'd grow used to it after a while, but every time someone in this office asks me if I'm new, it makes me feel like an imposter all over again.

"No, no," he said with an easy smile on his face, "you're not a 'new' girl anymore. You've been here long enough to stop wearing such silly looking clothes everyday." As he said this last bit, he gestured towards the bottom half of my body: the neatly pressed pants that covered my legs and the immaculate dress shoes that rested on top of them. To be clear, these were not silly clothes; they were literally my best clothes and they always were - even when I started working here! My boss has never told me otherwise! But Mr Percival (that's what his business card says) seemed to think otherwise...and now so did everyone else in the room!

Everyone else in the room? How could there possibly be anyone else in this room? This is just an empty cube farm and it's 4:30 in the afternoon! But as I looked around suddenly there were people everywhere: dozens and dozens of people standing around looking at me with confused expressions on their faces! They all wore plain clothes: boring shirts, dull ties and simple dresses - just like Mr Percival! And they all had neat haircuts and clean fingernails and slicked back hair styles; just like Mr Percival!

I instinctively tried to cover up my exposed underwear with both arms but realized that doing so only made things worse because now everyone could see that my arms weren't very big either! I heard giggles around me as people struggled to hold back their laughter while they pointed at me with their fingers. Someone shouted out "My God!" as if they were shocked by something terrible happening before their eyes! Then another voice rang out saying "Don't look at her!"

But before I could try to figure out what all of this meant, Mr Percival shouted out something even louder than before: "Why does she do this?! Why does she keep showing us her panties?!" As soon as he said this, everyone else ran away screaming and hiding behind desks as if they were terrified of me! Then Mr Percival turned towards me and repeated himself over and over again: "Why? Why? Why?" All while shaking his head back and forth slowly...just like on those old cartoons where someone gets punched hard in the face and then bounces around for several seconds afterwards!

What was happening?! Why were all these people reacting so strangely?! Did something weird happen? Was it Halloween already? Did someone release a gas into the air causing everyone to hallucinate or something?! But why did it only seem to affect me...? And what about Mr Percival? Why wasn't he affected by whatever happened before? Why did he seem so normal...? In fact...why was he even here in the first place? Where are we exactly? And why do we keep moving when we stand still??? What is going on??? When will everything make sense again???