18:PM

Tess realized one of the great modern dating sadnesses: everyone is so used to the comforting glow of the computer screen that nobody can go so far as to say “good morning” in public without being liquored up. If ever we do accidentally function as human beings, we call it instinct, as in, “sorry about the coffee, or your dress, or my last marriage, but I was operating on instinct,” as if it’s a failure to behave the way we’re all designed. Everyone forgets that acting on instinct has gotten many soldiers through many wars and the rest of us through long lives. The realization caused Tess to paint the dead ladybug on her bedside table with gold frost nail polish, which, as she predicted, did make it look prettier.

Social code was created for the thrill of dragging one’s fingertips across the inner thigh of another man’s wife. It has been enforced for centuries so that the room will go quiet when the boss is advised to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. The thrill of acting on instinct should never require an apology. An apology would be an act of belittlement; receiving it, an act of humiliation.

The ladybug is not dead: Good-bye, golden friend.