Once

"You have my full attention UNLESS you begin the story with "once upon a time"," Sharla said, refreshing her coffee (and her sugar and her cream). "I will read or listen to any atrocious bit of nonsense you can organize into paragraphs, but you start it like that and ... screw you." Abe laughed and almost choked on his croissant. "So, no classic openers for you, then," he chuckled. "You need something more original - something fresh and authentic." "I need something inclusive," Sharla corrected. "I'm an overthinker and an overdoer; I am philosophically opposed to the idea that anything is good enough on the first try. Also, I'm never on time; time and I are trapped in a toxic codependent spiral of fragile hope and predictable shame. I hear "once upon a time" and it's two strikes already; I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, like: "listen, all ye at your goal weight". I'm not having it." Abe lost it, spitting out the croissant as a protective measure, and marveling at how one person's childhood trope can be another person's torture.