In this week's issue of The New Yorker, Simon Rich wrote this humor piece in Shouts & Murmurs about what the creation of the world would have been like if God had had a kinda whiny, annoying girlfriend who worked in fashion, or more specifically, retail. Wait, what? An excerpt, below:
“Are you hungry?” He asked. “Let there be yogurt!” And there was that weird lo-cal yogurt that she liked.
“That’s not going to work this time,” she said.
“Look,” God said, “I know we’re going through a hard time right now. But this job is only temporary. As soon as I pay off my student loans, I’m going to switch to something with better hours.”
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And she said unto Him, “I work a full-time job and I still make time for you.”
And He said unto her, “Yeah, but your job’s different.”
And lo: He knew immediately that He had made a terrible mistake.
“You think my job’s less important than yours?” she said.
“No!” God said. “Of course not! I know how difficult it is to work in retail—I’m totally impressed by what you do!”
“Today I had to talk to fourteen buyers, because it’s Fashion Week. And I didn’t even have time to eat lunch.”
“That’s so hard,” God said. “You work so hard.”
“How would you know? You never even ask about my day! You just talk about your work, for hours and hours, like you’re the center of the universe!”
“Let there be a back rub,” God said.
And He started giving her a back rub.
And she said unto Him, “Can you please take the day off tomorrow?”
And He said unto her, “Don’t you have to work tomorrow? I thought it was Fashion Week.”
“I can call in sick.”
And God felt like saying to her, “If your job is so important, how come you can just take days off whenever you feel like it?” But He knew that was a bad idea.
On the one hand, we get it. We'll totally admit that we snickered a bit at the yogurt part (everybody knows that no one in fashion EVER eats amirite??). However, it's hard not to prickle at the fact that the man in this relationship is God. And the woman is vapid, manipulative, and kind of whiny, in a profession that is literally diametrically opposed to the Creation of the World.
We're getting a little tired of the irritating girlfriend with the frivolous occupation in these kinds of scenarios always working in fashion. But, you tell us, are we overreacting? Or is there something legitimately annoying going on here?
Photo: Via The New Yorker