The Easiest Answer

The barista at the Starbucks near YBM recognized me from a year ago. I recognized her, too - she always had a big smile and greeted me energetically.

Today, she asked me, in very basic English, "What do you do?"

There were any number of ways I could have answered this. I considered showing her a file or two on my computer. Or asking her to judge at next week's competition. But I haven't slept well this week. And my answers usually confuse people even when we speak the same language.

So I just pulled an alpaca finger puppet out of my backpack and presented it to her.

"Puppet!" she said.

"Alpaca," I explained.