THE PROFESSIONAL

I am currently seeking employment.

I am a professional holiday girlfriend.

I have great references

and highly impressive past work experiences.

I have been featured in 7 family holiday photos:

—6 Christmases

—and 1 Hanukkah.

Specialties include

my “famous brownies.”

I will:

—do the dishes

—look through baby photos with your mother

—have a long list of baby names to suggest

for the child we will never have

but your grandmother will pitifully dream about us having

before she dies.

I have:

—plenty of clean, respectable dresses

—drinking games to impress your cousins.

World-class gift giver

and wrapper

(it’s easier to nail it

when you only ever have to give one gift).

In one particularly extraordinary history,

I made a baby blanket from scratch

for a relative who was expecting.

I will never complain

about missing my family’s festivities

for your own,

and I will accept contract termination by spring.

I am 5’4”

with a perfectly straight smile

(dental records included,

no history of braces)

and I will ll any empty space

in your family photo.

Please respond before autumn.