Reality

She likes the reality shows. Not the really real reality shows, but the pretend real ones. Where craftiness gives advantage to some participants, and they are rewarded in ways completely unreal to her. Or the "change your life" ones. You take a real person and teach them some foreign skill and suddenly their world is not the ugly world of a trailer park, no man and a shit job. She knows these are not real. Real people do not cry because they miss their children and spouse for a few weeks. She looks around at her living room slash dining room slash kitchenette. She thinks of missing the familiar way the linoleum curls away from the floorboards in the corner, the way the carpet has sacrificed its soft and fluffy ways to bear the weight of her feet. She could not miss the grime and crud that refused to be eradicated from the crevices in her kitchen surfaces, even if she could be bothered to try the task. Maybe if you had someone to scour for. Maybe you miss a chipped countertop and a gummy string of caulk if it's been lovingly cleaned for someone other than yourself. But she didn't think so.