1 minute read.

#1 job interview question of the former VP of Human Resources at Microsoft

• That the cherry blossoms have reached peak bloom.
• That hand soap removes ketchup stains from clothing.
• That a whole industry wants me to worry about the scent of my vagina.
• That the word for cherry blossom, Sakura, comes from saku 咲, which also means “smile” and “laugh.”
• That Heinz released a special edition condiment: Tomato Blood.
• That Gwyneth Paltrow wants me to buy a vagina-scented candle.
• That a Wisconsin school district banned a Dolly Parton song because it mentions rainbows.
• That the 口 in 咲 indicates an open mouth.
• That you can order a cherry blossom-scented douche from Amazon.com.
• That one of my students slit his wrists in eighth grade, convinced there was no place in this world for a gay Black man.
• That the gamers who designed Call of Duty met gun manufacturers at a shooting range in Nevada to record the precise sounds of AR-15s.
• That soap doesn’t work on blood no matter how hard you scrub.
• That according to Google AutoComplete, the most commonly-searched questions include “Why are AR-15s legal?” and “Why are AR-15s so expensive?”
• That we should stop using the term “bullet points.”
• That cherry blossoms symbolize the fleeting nature of life.
• That Nevada isn’t pronounced with an “ah” but more nasally: “Nevada,” like the a in “ammunition” and “capitalism” and “casket.”

Erin Murphy

Erin Murphy is co-editor of Creating Nonfiction: Twenty Essays and Interviews with the Writers (SUNY Press), winner of the Gold Medal Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award. Her work has appeared in The Best of Brevity, The Cincinnati Review, Superstition Review, Guesthouse, Waxwing, Memoir, and elsewhere.

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cherry blossom creative non fiction essay Gwyneth Paltrow Heinz Lists Microsoft short read