Ten Seconds

The entire table had become a comedy club, and Ethan was the designated punchline.

"Your geometry teacher would be ashamed of you," Penelope added, seizing her moment. "Actually, wait—did you have a geometry teacher, Ethan? Or did you just freehand your way through high school like you freehand your way through employment?"

"The man can't even make a pancake," Marcus chimed in, warming to his theme. "A pancake is basically flour, eggs, milk, and hope. How do you mess that up? It's the easiest breakfast food in existence. It's the 'hello world' of cooking. And he's over here making ovals. Ovals! I've seen children at summer camp make better pancakes. I've seen hungover college students make better pancakes. I've seen a toaster strudel with more structural integrity!"

"The toaster strudel actually held its shape," Gavin agreed. "This pancake looks confused. It looks like it's questioning its life choices."

"Maybe it's symbolic," Landon offered, his voice dripping with faux-philosophical depth. "Ethan makes pancakes that are confused about their identity. It's a metaphor for his entire existence. He doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up, and apparently neither do his pancakes."

Ethan stood there, scratching the back of his neck as his ears flushed a light pink. Yet his smile remained steady. It was the smile of a man who had long ago accepted that his mother-in-law's insults were simply background noise, like traffic or birdsong or the distant sound of his own dignity being slowly eroded. "Not to worry, mom. I can go make another one."

"No, no," Derby flicked her wrist, waving him off like she was shooing a particularly persistent fly. "We'll eat it. We're not wasteful." She looked him dead in the eye, her tone dropping into something terrifyingly soft—the kind of soft that precedes a car accident. "We're just... disappointed. Profoundly. Deeply. Existentially disappointed. I'm disappointed in ways I didn't know disappointment existed. I'm disappointed for you, for your parents, for the entire educational system that failed to produce a man who can make a round pancake."

Across the table, Gavin leaned forward, eager to jump into the arena. He'd been waiting for his moment like a hyena circling a wounded gazelle, and by God, he was going to make it count. "Aunt Derby! I've figured out Ethan's problem."

"Oh?"

"He's overqualified," Gavin said.

Derby gasped dramatically. "For what, Gavin?"

"For unemployment. The man is too good at not having a job. He's been practicing for three years—he's a seasoned professional at this point. Most people can't sustain unemployment that long without breaking. It takes dedication. It takes commitment. It takes a certain... passion. Ethan has turned being unemployed into an art form. He's the Picasso of not working. The Mozart of mooching. The—"

"The Shakespeare of slacking!" Marcus shouted.

"The Leonardo da Vinci of doing absolutely nothing!" Penelope added.

"He's not just unemployed—he's distinguished in his unemployment," Gavin continued, warming to his theme. "He's achieved tenure in unemployment. He's published papers in the field of unemployment. He's got a PhD in 'not having a job.' Three years, Aunt Derby! Three years of consistent, dedicated, uninterrupted unemployment. Do you know how hard that is? Most people accidentally find a job within two years even when they're not trying. Ethan has tried to find a job and still failed. That's not laziness—that's an achievement. That's like getting lost while using GPS. That's like burning water. That's like—"

The table practically shook with the force of the laughter. Hands slammed on the mahogany. Someone—possibly Penelope—actually snorted into her orange juice. Even one of the housemaids by the sideboard had to quickly turn her head to hide a slip of a smile, though her shoulders gave her away entirely. Uncle Harold's egg-stained tablecloth was now officially ruined, and no one cared.

"He's the most employable unemployed person I've ever met!" Landon contributed, wiping tears from his eyes. "I've never seen anyone fill out so many applications and receive so many rejections. It's almost beautiful. He should frame them. He should make a collage. 'The Art of Rejection: My Three-Year Journey in Application Submissions.' It could be an exhibition!"

"An exhibition that no one would hire him to curate!" Marcus shot back, and the table dissolved again.

And then... unexpectedly... Ethan laughed too.

It was a rich, genuine laugh that cut straight through the room like a ray of sunshine through a thundercloud. The laughter around the table faltered. Gavin's smirk froze mid-smug. "You... you're laughing?"

Ethan nodded, entirely unfazed. He was practically beaming. "It was a good joke."

"It was about you, dumbhead" insisted Gavin, as if this should have been obvious. "I was destroying you. I was creatively annihilating your entire existence through words. I made references to your failure state in multiple historical contexts. I—"

"I know," Ethan said, still smiling.

"And you're not offended?" Gavin followed up, his voice climbing into a slightly desperate register.

"Should I be?" Ethan asked, feigning a frown with the twisted face of a moron.

And for ten complete seconds, Gavin was completely dumbfounded.