The fog, as usual, was winning. It wasn't just outside my San Francisco apartment window, a wispy gray curtain muting the already muted colors of the Sunset District. No, this fog had somehow seeped inside, settling in my bones, coating my ambition with a damp, discouraging chill. It was the Fog of Rejection, and it was clinging tighter than a toddler to a lollipop.
My laptop screen glowed, a mocking beacon in the gloom. It displayed the same message I’d seen a hundred times this year: “Thank you for your interest in [Insert Tech Giant Here]. After careful consideration…” Blah, blah, blah. After careful consideration, they’d decided I wasn’t quite… what? Revolutionary enough? Bro-y enough? Did my coding style lack sufficient unicorn sparkle?
Bugzy, bless his furry little heart, seemed to sense my despair. He launched himself from the back of the couch – a feat of impressive agility for a cat of his… ample… proportions – and landed squarely on my keyboard. A string of gibberish erupted on the screen: “asdf;lkjASDF;LKJ;lkj.”
"Bugzy, no! I swear, you're going to accidentally launch a nuclear missile one of these days."
He blinked at me, those emerald eyes radiating pure, unadulterated innocence. Or maybe just hunger. It was always hard to tell with Bugzy. He was my ginger tabby therapist, my furry coding assistant (albeit a destructive one), and my constant reminder that even in the face of soul-crushing rejection, there was always a reason to purr.