The Day After

Today is one of my least favorite days of the year. Actually I guess all Tuesdays following a three-day holiday weekend are. I can tell you one thing for sure – whoever invented the shirt collar and the tie obviously never spent three straight days playing and working in the sun! I think I may now permanently have a red neck. In fact, without even realizing it, I parked my truck up on the front lawn yesterday. I guess the symptoms of my red neck crept up on me slowly. After all, I watched NASCAR (Jeff Gordon crashed and was relegated to a 41st place finish – woo hoo) and smoked ribs on the grill while Lucy and Ethel played with our dog Mabel this weekend. I didn’t really connect all the dots until my neighbors asked me if I was going to keep my truck where I had parked it. Me yelling at the neighbors and mumbling something about gettin’ my danged old shot gun outta the house was what really made me notice how red my neck had become. I don’t think anyone named Aloe or Vera can help me with this.

I got through the weekend without further alienating myself from my neighbors and went into work at 4:30 this morning since I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know if it was me succumbing to the fear of my impending death (see post below) or the fact that I had about 6 Mountain Dews (MMMMMM, White Lightning…none of you are likely to get that reference, but I had to do it) from about 7PM on last night. I was alone when I entered the office and (gulp) everything was still upside down. Knowing it would disappoint most of my coworkers, I resisted the temptation to put everything we had turned upside down in Female Coworker’s office back to its correct angle. I spent most of the time I was alone at work writing good-bye notes to my coworkers. I also had to make the difficult decision of which employee was going to get my desk toys. I decided I would split them up. I asked that if I were to be cremated I wanted my remains to go in the trophy I stole for our office from last month’s company awards luncheon. It probably violates the building’s codes, but I also instructed my fellow surviving employees to just say they were cigarette ashes and the trophy was a very expensive ashtray. Although that would lead code enforcement to inquire about why there needs to be an ashtray in our office, which really doesn’t help my fellow employees’ cause and directs the attention away from them honoring me.

When Female Coworker finally arrived, I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye…or look at her at all for that matter. This did not go unnoticed by her. She grilled me to find out why I wasn’t looking at her and then she mentioned IT. I feigned stupidity (although for some reason no one noticed any difference from my usual self) and claimed to be unaware of what she was speaking about. Then she asked whose idea her big cubicle redecoration was. Since I had prepared for death all weekend, I took the bullet for the team and spoke first. My answer was brave, honest and concise. ‘It was Mr. Coworker’s idea,’ I stuttered. Female Coworker’s piercing stare drove me to immediately regret that answer, especially when I had to admit that I had just lied to her and while the idea was Mr. Coworker’s, I was the one that ‘elaborated’ upon it.

Female Coworker said that I had earned her wrath and not to ask her for any help today. She said she had been in the office over the weekend when she noticed what we had done. She did have the grace not to exact her revenge upon our offices but made it clear that she was going to make our lives unusually difficult for the foreseeable future. I gave her my best game show host grin, tried to give her that cute face that Puss and Boots gives Shrek and said I would have offered to help her clean up her cubicle if she had not already taken it upon herself to do so. I don’t think she appreciated that gesture. I say this because she gave me a gesture of her own. I think she also mumbled something about watching my back.

So, long story short, I have been given at least a temporary stay of execution. You can believe that the first time Female Coworker asked for help today that we all ran to her aid. I just wonder how long until she figures out that we gave her the wrong info. Bwa-ha-ha-ha…