What You Are Laughing At

Elbow to the Earhole

The current menu: Grande Light-Ice Nonfat Latte and Low-carb Cheese Puffs. Good thing I’m secure with myself. The latte tastes as if it’s been curdled, really very bitter, I’m gonna take it back because $3 worth of coffee and milk should not taste like $0.72 worth of coffee and underwear elastic. Should it?

Someone two rows away is coughing like they’re iller than a Run-DMC rap, and I’m tired of hearing them hack to the point of wretching, yet they haven’t the strength to go for water. YAY, now we all get to hear it. If it happens again I’m Heimliching them until they either hork into their supply drawer or throw me a $50, because I hear enough hack at open mics. Don’t I>

There’s a guy I work with who is, to say the least, an eclectic personality. We’ll call him Toolio. A really wonderful mixture of Junior High Wise-ass and Wendy’s swing-shift assistant manager, total charmer. He truly believes he’s both riotously funny and socially capable of greasing the hinges of the door on the Friendly Buddy Boy board room. He’s going through a divorce, which I know only because he has overly loud telephone conversations with his estranged (very fitting word) wife and/or her lawyers. He also has a child, which reinforces my desire for an enzyme in Mt. Dew that causes people who drink more than 2 liters a year to auto-sterilize themselves. They don’t cater Nobel Prize Ceremonies with Code Red. Do they?

So I get back from Trader Joe’s shoppin’ and I have a large bag with me that has a number of items to be refrigerated. I brought the whole bag in because it’s raining outside and I didn’t feel like standing in to grab and balance 5 cold items then run inside and blah blah. As I get to the kitchen area, where the freezer be, Toolio is standing in the door way, back to the door, stirring and staring into a cup of work-sponsored coffee. I pardon myself past him, as he saunters, sort-of, sideways so I can get by. I’m twice his size, it’s all I can do to not hip-check this plasma waster into the wall-mounted First Aid tackle box. Isn’t it?

I immediately sense his brain whirring to make a comment about the bag I’m carrying. I’ve done it before, myself, in Sarcasm 101. Big bag, near lunch time, why not a joke aimed at the size of the bag, associating it with a lunch-carrying tote? How about “So did you run out of big lunch bags?” or “Anna Nicole Smith’s packing your lunches again, eh?” Toolio offers me this: “Ya know, when I pack my lunches, I, like, usually, uh, like pack it in…” THIS HAS ALREADY TAKEN TOO LONG AND WILL NOT BE FUNNY. Brevity is the bain of twits. He finishes with “… a, uh, smaller sack.” Must he?

This is the same guy who, when someone brings donuts to work, will break them in half with his hands, and take half of one, half of another, and leave the fondled halves behind… We have knives for that. He will go desk to desk to organize a pot-luck, encouraging people to bring enough for 30 people to consume. On the big day, he shows up with a 2-liter of Dr. Pepper, a store-brand bag of “riffled” potato chips, and a seven-layer dip from QFC. This past halloween he organized a day to allow people with kids to bring the kids into work so we could hand candy out to them. I have no kids, so I don’t get 3 hours off to do this, and I’m pretty sure a couple guys in this office shouldn’t be within 200 yards of adolescents. People spend money decorating their desks and buying candy for the kids, all 7, who come by over the course of 3 hours on a FRIDAY, so eveyone has to wait around on a FRIDAY to do basically nothing. Toolio uses the whiteboard next to his cube to draw a scary “jack o’ lantern,” and hands out… ready?... RAISINS. PEOPLE, I CAN GET RAISINS ON THE OUTSIDE. I PONY UP FOR SOUR GUMMI WORMS AND FUN-SIZE KIT KATS, I EXPECT AT LEAST AN ALMOND JOY IN RETURN. Don’t I?

I’m not a violent person. A lot more can be solved by confusing and frustrating your opponent than physically battering them. But gawd, it would feel so good to lower a shoulder and propel myself into the back of chair as he crash-tested his keyboard. Because when I get into other people’s business and have nothing to offer, I deserve to get my come-uppance when I least expect it. Don’t I?

In my mind, he's icing a knot on his head from where he hit the wall-mounted First Aid kit. In reality, I'm happy he's not hurt. He's getting divorced, he's got years of that coming to him.

Next stop, Latte Retribution.