look both ways
I was going to post yesterday, but I didn't, and now I've forgotten what I was
going to say. Oh, I've just remembered, but I'll mention it in a minute, if I
still remember it then.
It was either in the early spring or the early fall. I'm not sure when, but I
know it was a point when I was working part time at the office, because I
wasn't there for coffee.
Wayner and Sheri headed across the street to Starbucks for their daily jolt
(American university goers will understand my reference there). It being a
nice day, they decided to sit outside and enjoy the sun. There are always
plenty of sparrows hanging around, waiting for the plethora of crumbs that
fall at their feet. They'd never caused a problem until this one particular
day. A little tiny sparrow was hopping along near Wayner's legs when it
decided to make a small "chirp!"
Apparently, Wayner FLIPPED out.
"WAAH!"
And I'm talking the kind of flipped out when you discover that there's an army
ant crawling up your leg and you do that little dance where you frantically
(and ineffectually) try to remove the tiny creature from your person.
Needless to say, he scared the crap out of the bird.
Poor thing.
(I mean the bird)
His excuse (while Sheri was frantically trying not to pee herself laughing)
was something like (and I am writing this in Wayner's tone of voice when he
gets defensive), "that BIRD. It was just so LOUD."
Why do I always miss the moments of superb stupidity? It's like I'm cursed.
Anyway, Sheri figured that God was going to get her for laughing at him that
day (behind his back, of course).
And God got her. This morning.
I was in the process of leaving a message on a client's voice mail. The
recording had just ended, but I got interrupted. So the poor secretary who
got the messages would have heard something that sounded like a dull splat in
the background, then me saying "ooop!" and hanging up.
Let me explain.
Today we received a shipment of paper.
Paper comes in a large box, and usually sits on the floor near my desk, in
this little nook, until we deal with it and put it away.
Today, I was too busy to push it into the little nook, and I remember
thinking, as I stepped over it to go into Sheri's area where the fax machine
is, that someone (likely me) was going to trip over this if I didn't move it.
But I didn't move it.
Sheri was having a busy day as well. Some other solicitors hadn't registered
a discharge as she'd asked and then called her with some stupid question, so
she had to photocopy some sheet and send it to them with a letter about how
stupid they were (but in legally polite terms). She made it over the box the
first time to the photocopier, which is in my area, but I guess she was so
busy staring at her piece of paper in a disgruntled manner and muttering that
she didn't make it back.
The next thing I know, I hear this sort of thumping splat as Sheri hits the
tile floor. And when she tripped, I don't mean she went down on one knee.
This girl was flat on her face, artfully arranged like somebody's chalk
outline stencil. I looked over just as her shoe rolled gently to a stop next to my
desk.
Wayner practically fell over himself in his surprise, shouting "OHMYGOD!" and
trying to pull her up, a maneouver that failed to work, as Sheri was
studiously picking herself up without his help.
Luckily, she wasn't hurt at all, not even a bruised knee. So we could laugh.
AND LAUGH.
It was just as good as the day that Jennifer tried to pull two heavy boxes out
from under my desk and the cardboard gave way just as she gave the hardest
tug, causing her to shoot across the room on her butt, and Wayner to shoot out of
his meeting with a client, coming into the room all concerned only to find us
unable to breathe from laughing so hard, Jen still on the floor, knees up and
skirt in disarray.
Or the time I sat on the folding stool and the metal buckled, making me feel
like I weighed ten tonnes as I slowly sank to the floor, still typing.
Oh, office humour.
On a less cheerful note, I've been thinking about human relationships often
recently. I mean, yes, it's my thesis topic, so it's supposed to be on my
mind. But I like to sit back and reflect on certain interactions amongst my
own group of friends.
I'm not going to post about any specific examples here, just because I know
some of you read this (and it's really none of your business what I think
about you), but I do think about why people do what they do, and my
knowledge of you guys enables me to understand some of those reasons, based on
my understanding of your various backgrounds, families, and motives.
One thing that I've always found odd is that implicit friendship protocol.
This came to light recently, as I came in possession of some information that
I was told to pass on (although ostensibly keeping the secret at the same time) to
another friend, even though the person who gave me the information could have
passed on the same much more expediently and far sooner than I could have,
possibly avoiding the current unfortunate situation. But protocol dictated
that I had to be the intermediary. Isn't it odd how things like that work?
Sometime, when you're talking to someone about someone else, or about each
other, and one of you says, "but I
can't do that," and the other person
says, "oh, obviously," and you both nod at each other because you know why --
do you really have a concrete reason
WHY? Or is it totally
unconscious? Think about that for a spell. Then come talk to
me.
Outtie.
Posted by Ally at November 14, 2005 07:26 PM