Look, I swear I don't hate her. She's an insufferable prick who hasn't read a food safety guideline in her life, and yeah, she poisoned half a city because she left the damn food outside in the summer heat one night, but I don't hate her. I just wish she'd leave town so I can sell hot dogs without worrying that my customers are going to drop in on her cart and walk away with food poisoning, alright? I don't want to be blamed for that shit. It's not my fault she thinks hot dogs can't make someone barf their guts up, yeah? They can. Doesn't matter if they're the precooked shit or fresh, sausage or meat paste, it's all listeria to me. Let the flies eat it if they've been out too long. A sane person wouldn't make people pay them to eat that, right? I'm telling you, she's insufferable. The bitch doesn't think you can get food poisoning from hot dogs, but if she'd taken five minutes to read- hell, just Google it. It's on the internet, free of charge. You're asking for it if you eat a dog that's been baking in the sun all day where the flies can get their grubby little hands on it, and she's selling that poison like it's safe. How she hasn't been shut the hell down yet is beyond me. Maybe it's the contacts with the health inspectors- I heard she saved Linda's ass when she let slip she got turned after a Saturday night party binge at Lewey's bar. Do folks not know the nightlife around here's as big a risk as raw meat anymore? Swear half the city's going to be undead by the time they figure it out- would help that bitch if they all turned, can't poison someone who's kicked it and walking. Maybe that's why she hasn't been shut down. Hell if I know.

It's not just the food poisoning, either. Sure, that's pretty damnable, but the girl can't take a goddamn bit of advice. You tell her "oh, you should get a fridge for your cart" and she says "well, Daina, I've been doing just dandy without one and nobody's complained, and I can't spare the cash-" bitch, you've got the whole park in your pockets. I know how long you've been around. You have the cash. Buy a damn fridge. Buy a proper shop and settle down so you're not hauling molten meat around the park in a ramshackle tin cart with an umbrella held together with duct tape and prayers. Buy yourself a food handler's license. She's a cheapskate for no good reason when spending just a few bucks would make her leagues more tolerable. And then there's the time I tried to tell her not to wear those puffy-sleeved blouses that look like a Victorian housewife made them since they drive off the customers, and she got all huffy with me and said "you'll understand when you're older" like I'm not already a goddamn ancient compared to a lot of the cityfolk. Yeah, sure, I don't look it, but that's the curse of a babyface, isn't it? I look nothing like my age. Can't go anywhere without getting carded. She's got that broad jaw and forehead furrows- don't think she's been carded since she turned. Believe me, I'm plenty old even if I look like I'm stuck in college. Girl needs to take a hint. Think I should show up in a petticoat to prove a point? Might finally ram it through her skull that she's got to change with the times. You'd think it was 1865 with the way she dresses, I swear. Makes me want to rip that goddamn lace off of her.

But I swear I don't hate her. She just drives me nuts. Like the other day, I was headed out with my cart- and believe me, it's a nice cart, gets cleaned daily and fixed up so it's brand spanking new, not like hers with the broken spokes and creaking hinge- anyways, I was headed out with my cart and what do you know, there she comes. And she's got that stupid sign looped over her neck, striped apron, spotted socks, looks like a garbage can threw up on her. And she comes right up to me and says "hello" like she wants to rip my face off, and you know what? I'm considering doing just that myself. It's been what, five hundred years of her dragging that wreck of a cart looking like that? Poisoning people? I should've kicked her teeth in. But she says hello and comments on the weather like it's an insult, "did you see the clouds? Might rain today, business might be bad", and then she has the nerve to flash her teeth at me. They're the only clean thing on her damn body. I swear she somehow gets dirt up her nose by the time evening's rolled around. She flashes those white teeth at me like she wants me to comment, so I tell her "yeah, maybe you should head inside" and point up at her crooked, duct-taped abomination of an umbrella, and then? The bitch laughed. I should have ripped that umbrella off its socket and beat her with it. But no, I forced a laugh with her and wished her good luck in as sarcastic a tone as I could manage, and you know what? She blew me a goddamn kiss on the way past me. There's no way she doesn't know that the sight of her ugly-ass mug makes me want to stomp her head into the street just to see some blood on her skin. The nerve of her to blow a kiss! She's gotta be down to bash this out after all these centuries poisoning my customers, right? She must want a fistfight.

I don't hate her. I promise. I'd just like to see her dead.

Written 22 October 2022.