One thing I can say about karmic retribution: In my case, it is inevitably swift. Perhaps it is just my perception, but after ragging on my boss�s bout with food poisoning, an unfortunate decision I made that included cheery offers to pick up a Caesar salad for him (one of said salads having been the trigger for the poisoning) and miming dramatic vomiting just inside his range of vision, I came down with a vile stomach ailment of my own. Would you like to hear all about it? Because I find that detailed descriptions of the intestinal disorders of relative strangers helps brighten even the gloomiest morning.

Rather than share any details, I will tell you how much I suffered at the hands of my boss when I came back to work. The mimed vomiting, the walking around in an apparent heightened state of weakness� he pulled out all the stops, and I can�t say his glee was undeserved. Payback is, as they say, a bitch.

Coworker Melvin, who can always be counted on to add a horror story to any situation, approached me today and inquired about my health. �I�m all right,� I said, continuing to type information into the form for online vehicle registration. �Huh,� he said, �Because you don�t look so good.� I stopped typing and looked at him sideways.

�Excuse me?� I was taken aback, because not only am I wearing a very cute outfit, with stockings and everything, and nice earrings, I had taken a moment to reapply lipstick only moments before.

�Well,� he hedged, �you just don�t look quite up to par.�

�Did you SEE my EARRINGS?� I yelled, highlighting them with my hands, Vanna White-style. They really are very cute�a Christmas present from my aunt Madrina�slender gold chains hung with vari-colored tourmaline briolettes. I stood to display my skirt, which flared slightly when I twirled around, causing only the slightest tinge of nausea on my part, and possibly also on his. I pointed out my knee-high boots of Spanish leather, which I got on eBay for twenty bucks, but which retail for several hundred dollars. None of this made any difference, except to make Melvin chuckle nervously and scuttle away crabwise, back to his den. I was still pointing out my carefully applied lipstick with an indignant finger when he disappeared around the corner. I�m left with a vague, unsettled feeling that I look �off� somehow, despite my stockings, which feature a total of zero runs, and my sparkly floral barrette.

I don�t know that I should take Melvin�s word for anything, as he tends to paint his world with a very dark brush, albeit with a fervor approaching glee. In telling of an event that took place in his past, he might say, for example, that it occurred not �in 1971,� but �in the year after the riots happened.� That the riots do not figure elsewhere into his narrative is, to him, immaterial. To fail to mention them would be, somehow, a denial of their importance, which would in turn lead to a long explanation of his awareness that, say, some people discriminate against minorities and homosexuals. Melvin loves his pet phrases. In discussing a legal dispute, he avoids the term �argument� for the more evocative �convoluted and specious sophisms.� He has many of these terms waiting in the wings, and brings them out for frequent encores, like doddering but respected senior members of the Drama Guild. Our board members are �insufferable ivory-tower academicians.� Souvenir shops sell �criminally overpriced non-necessities.� His sister�s set of female friends are �predaci0us div0rcees.� His phrasing never varies.

Melvin�s comment about me not looking so hot has sidetracked me from the excellent recipe I planned to share today. So, instead, here�s a picture of one of the earrings (see illustration):

ILLUSTRATION

Bonus: you can see how messy my hair is. You know, maybe Melvin�s right after all.

Star of the day. . .Madeline Peyroux