Last Tuesday, I got laid off. Again. My boss called it a “strategic realignment.” I called it “the third time in two years.” I packed my desk—stapler, half-dead succulent, a photo of my dog—and drove to Costco because I didn’t want to go home. Sat in the parking lot for an hour, scrolling LinkedIn jobs that required skills I didn’t have. “Python? I barely know HTML,” I muttered to a seagull eyeing my bumper. A guy in a Honda Odyssey parked next to me. Mid-30s, messy hair, same hollow stare. We nodded—the universal “Life’s a dumpster fire, huh?” greeting. He pulled out a Costco hot dog, took a bite, and started crying. Not sobbing. Just… silent tears into his soda. I bought two hot dogs. Knocked on his window. “Hey. Uh. You want another?” Turns out, Mark’s wife left him three weeks ago. Took the kids. He’d been sleeping in his van. “I come here ’cause the samples feel like a meal,” he said. We ate in silence, ketchup dripping on our shoes. Here’s the thing: I’d spent months pretending I was okay. “Just hustling!” I’d tell friends. “Networking!” But that day, sitting in a grease-stained shirt next to a stranger, I admitted it: “I’m terrified. And tired.” Mark shrugged. “Me too. But this hot dog? Perfect. Small wins, man.” We swapped numbers. Started texting dumb memes. Last week, he crashed on my couch. We applied to jobs side-by-side—me for graphic design gigs, him for HVAC work. He taught me how to fix my leaky sink; I showed him how to use Canva. Yesterday, he got hired. We celebrated with (you guessed it) Costco hot dogs.