1. How long have you had that coat?
2. You still have clothes from high school?
3. Why are you so self-deprecating?
4. Why did you pass up the chance to go to Columbia?
5. You mean your parents didn’t go to college?
6. Your dad wears jeans to work?
7.  Does anybody in your family read?
8. Why are you so stressed out?
9. Why are you pushing yourself so hard to graduate in four years?
10. Why can’t you just get a new car?
11. Why would you date a guy like that?
12. How could you live in that neighborhood?
13. You went all the way out there on the train by yourself?
14. You mean you didn’t take a gap year after college?
15. What am I supposed to talk about with your dad?
16. Growing up, were you embarrassed by your parents?
17. Why don’t you go to the doctor?
18. Why don’t you buy it if you like it?
19. What would you know about working class people?
20. Your dad is a maintenance foreman?
21. Your parents left you home alone when you were little?
22. You’re staying here for vacation?
23. Why are you so nervous about meeting his parents?
24. Who showed you how to change a spark plug?
25. You don’t have a lawyer/accountant/therapist?
26. Why are you moving?
27. Why are you so secretive?
28. Why do you always sell yourself short?
29. Who did you vote for?
30. Are you afraid?

Jan Stinchcomb is the author of the novella, Find the Girl (Main Street Rag, 2015). Recent stories have appeared or are forthcoming in FLAPPERHOUSE, Hypertrophic Literary, Unbroken Journal, Gamut Magazine, and Storm Cellar. She reviews fairy tale-inspired works in Notes From Rapunzel’s Tower, her column for Luna Station Quarterly, and lives in Southern California with her husband and children. Find her on Twitter @janstinchcomb.

Image: Photograph by Bea Currie, a writer and photographer living in Kentucky.