L. strolled in late everyday as usual, her long curly brown hair fanned out across her wide – rounded back, and her feet made sticky sounds as her plump heels smashed down onto the surface of open toed sandals.  Those hooves always made me think of baking bread.  Not anymore.  Each time she attended a meeting it was her role to constantly speak up and say what was just previously said a little differently, enough to stall the progress of the dialogs from actually getting to a solution.  It seemed to spread like an African fever around the room.  I was immune, irritated, and ultimately unaffected.   When speaking casually she preceded each statement with a wry and sexy smile, as if the absolutist of truths was about to be revealed, but she was not sexy – she was fat, so the emptiness of both gestures resulted in null space, uncomfortable silences and ultimately the need to move on.  She once revealed that she had been intimately involved with a man who told lies of such magnitude that even his own mother thought him so unworthy of honest efforts she simply called him the, “The Liar.”  He said that he was a young single physiologist with a doctorate degree.  She dated him for a year.  He was a divorced man with two sons he visited on the weekends and he had never been to college.   She was shocked when her mother, dismayed by the fact that he was unemployed, did some background checking and discovered the truth.  I can’t imagine how something like that could be pulled off.  But, after all, L. is just a fat girl and I’ve known that type to do just about anything for love from anyone at all.

 

T. spent more time pooping than anyone I have ever known and associated with extremes in that regard.  Four times out of ten that I entered the restroom each day T. would be there in the far stall, silent in his efforts, the smell metabolized middle-eastern cuisine hanging heavily in the air.  I would gag as I put an illegal pinch of snuff in my cheek and bend down to look for his shoes under the partition.  Eventually I became pleased each time I recognized his loafers.  If it was P. or S. or anyone from the department I was sad, my suspicions unconfirmed.  I knew everyone’s shoes but when spying in the shitter I wanted to see T’s.  When being briefed about the introduction of new technology T. relentlessly asked questions about specifications and details that had absolutely nothing to do with his job responsibilities.  He would be acquiesced as minimally as possible by the speaker to wit he would re-phrase his question over and over, at times long after the topic had been closed, to the point that nearly everyone was audibly disgusted with his persistence.  I can’t recall learning anything in those meetings or if anything was ever discussed in totality, being completely befuddled at his audacity.  He was the color of an olive.  He was nothing really but an Indian that caught my attention because my desk was so damn close to the bathroom at the time.

 

There is a line several inches below the belly button of men, a threshold that must never be breached by the waist of his drawers, with the single acceptable and widely practiced exception of dancing in front of one’s woman during the delirious hours of the night, a glorious display of camel toe.  This knowledge, being common as it is, forces the sensible man to be suspicious of others who wear their pants too damn high.  It has less to do with style than common sense.  It has less to do with perception than ridiculousness.   It leaves a sour taste on the back of an observers tongue.  It is a workplace behavior that should be addressed by Human Resources, a corrective plan of action put in place, a defined course of discipline for non-compliance to be signed by the accused, perhaps counseling on the company bill.  Yet for some reason B. was able to remain ignorant of this during his 30 something years in the United States and I was forced to look at it for six months of mine.  No one said a word.  No one seemed to notice.  To me it was as distracting as a small rock in my shoe or a pimple inside one of my nostrils.  And so each day as I discussed the progress of my efforts with B., I sank into my chair and became dreamy.  He would chew gingerly and tenaciously at little hangnails that weren’t really there.  When he perceived that he had succeeded in detaching one he would spit repeatedly through thin, tightened lips, and brush the tip of his tongue with a thin girly finger.  He would push his glasses up on his nose then wrinkle his face and say, “It shouldn’t do that should it?”  All the while I would sit and wonder if the only real reason I began working in the first place was so that my Mom would stop harassing me.     

 

G. was not a professional golfer and defiantly not a leisurely yaughting aficionado and I believe that it was inappropriate for him to purposefully look the part on the job.

 

M. is like a sparrow.  She is petite, her skin is smooth, and she looks more desirable in casual clothing that I imagine she would in an exquisite evening gown.  Her blue eyes are engaging and her blond hair looks like it would sift softly through your fingers.  She is extremely gentle and polite.  Her work is performed professionally and in timely manner, a rarity among these people.  And then she walks; rather she ambulates, as if she was strolling down a river dock just after a tugboat has passed by.  But strangely enough this only seems to be the case when she is wearing pants.  The moment that she appears wearing a skirt or summer dress there is a grace in her stride.  Perhaps it is the visual presence of her small, shapely calves.   Maybe she has issues with her inner ear.  Whatever the case, I always felt like the world was just a bit more friendly place to be when M. showed her legs.                

               

P., S., K., O., and R., the buffet frequenter’s, had a lunch time thing that I could not figure out.  Each day at 11:00 word started making it around that a buffet was in the works.  The message flowed strategically from desk to desk.  The non-believers became insensitive to the question after time and eventually were relieved of the duty to produce a sensible excuse not to join the group.  And yet strangely enough when the message arrived a buffet frequenter’s desk they always reacted as if it were an unusually good idea in the midst of a humdrum workweek, a one-time privilege.  They would say, “Sounds risky but what the hell,” or, “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” and once in a while, “Fuckin-A.”  Eventually someone would crack the whip and send everyone out the door by claiming that someone other than himself was buying for the group.  They were all married, or at least, almost married, and at times this social contract became a potential threat to the group, typically as an anti-message from home indicating that this activity was currently being frowned upon.  The camaraderie of the group became most potent at these times.  Together they would find the power to overcome whether by proclamations of independence or whispers of non-disclosure.  It might be presumptive to assume that this cyclic flow of events provided them with sub conscious purpose, but I think that I will.  I am guessing that during the course of their carefully directed quests for the good life they had created for themselves banal existences void of any real danger or excitement.  The buffet had become an institution to believe in, a right worth fighting for.   Then again I don’t know what they do when I am not around but I could certainly guess…

 

W. wore a sweater vest every single day.  No one seemed to be bothered by this.  Neither was I.

 

I maintained a very stable routine that warranted little concern from others.  Three days a week I would arrive with blistering red eyes and bourbon seeping from my pores.  Thirty minutes in and I would be back out for a smoke.  I became clearly and verbally agitated when the vending machine people failed to replenish the Pizzeria Combo’s, and on two occasions they had actually replaced the item altogether with some chocolaty wafer, to which I nearly resigned.  These trivial snacking events did, however, affect my working proficiency, as my palate could not be adequately prepared for the scheduled 10:30AM pinch of snuff.  In turn I could not debug XML, or format SQL, and most significantly I could not digest the news on CNN.com.  I wore the same jeans everyday and washed them twice a week.  Now and then out of the clear blue sky I would arrive dressed to the 9’s to keep everyone on his or her toes.  I have a suspicion that at times the worn leather of my shoe’s, under the influence of heat, would place a hint of feet in air.  I spoke too loudly on the phone with friends about the things that concern me, which varied in subject and intensity.  I made no effort what so ever to be overfriendly or less than friendly to anyone outright.  And for some reason when I wear headphones I forget that people can see me and I work at a bugger or two until the issue is resolved.  Normally I failed to hear people they spoke to me.   I wonder if anybody noticed.