Thirteenth Day in May
It was a weird Friday at work.
Left the house early. When I got to work I started cleaning out my cube.
Major feng shui fest.
There was this cluttered corner under the cabinets where notebooks, papers, and whoknowswhat had gathered. Now there is a single green plant there. It looks nice when the desk lamp is on right beside it.
Missed a meeting I wanted to attend so I could do a presentation in another. Turned out I didn't miss much at the meeting I wanted to go to. Cool.
Attended a "mandatory" meeting over lunch (that I found out later was not mandatory) sitting between my boss and this really nice girl co-worker. The meeting was rather unfocused and the subject was rather foreign and unrelated to the work I do, so my attention was drifting a bit in spite of my earnest effort to concentrate and absorb. I wasn't the only one trying to concentrate. Apparently all my boss could think about was lunch. He kept saying, "when are they going to break for lunch?" Then the girl beside me also leaned over and asked me, "aren't they gonna break for lunch soon, I'm starving!"
Their hunger panging reminded me of something Z said one time when we were driving to Texas. He was all, "I'm huuungry, when are we gonna eeeat, mom? Can't we eat soon, I'm starving to death!"* Then he said, "Mom, what if peoples tummies glowed red like a stoplight when they were hungry, and if they were really hungry the tummy would start beeping like the microwave oven."
At the time it was just one of those cute thing he says. But here I was in this long and rather, um, serious, meeting, when right then and there I got that vision in my head of a room full of corporate people with glowing red tummies, illuminated through their shirts, and then the beeping would begin, one here, another there. Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
I embarrassed myself half to death when I tried to contain the spontaneous laughter that came out anyway through my nose and at the same time I had to press my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't simply burst out uncontrolled. A sorta snort-through-the-nose thing. Yeah. And my boss is sitting right there.
The next minute was the longest minute in my life, up until now, as I tried with great difficulty to contain myself by thinking about all kinds of things horrible to clear my head of the vision of a room full of glowing beeping tummies. I thought hard hard hard about people dying on the Titanic, about migraine headaches, about drinking a gulp of soured milk. It worked.
Finally it was time for lunch.
And eventually it was finally time to head home, on a Friday afternoon.
So glad it's Friday.
*We starve our kids when we drive to Texas. The peanuts and raisins and water and apples and bananas just leave them emaciated.
Left the house early. When I got to work I started cleaning out my cube.
Major feng shui fest.
There was this cluttered corner under the cabinets where notebooks, papers, and whoknowswhat had gathered. Now there is a single green plant there. It looks nice when the desk lamp is on right beside it.
Missed a meeting I wanted to attend so I could do a presentation in another. Turned out I didn't miss much at the meeting I wanted to go to. Cool.
Attended a "mandatory" meeting over lunch (that I found out later was not mandatory) sitting between my boss and this really nice girl co-worker. The meeting was rather unfocused and the subject was rather foreign and unrelated to the work I do, so my attention was drifting a bit in spite of my earnest effort to concentrate and absorb. I wasn't the only one trying to concentrate. Apparently all my boss could think about was lunch. He kept saying, "when are they going to break for lunch?" Then the girl beside me also leaned over and asked me, "aren't they gonna break for lunch soon, I'm starving!"
Their hunger panging reminded me of something Z said one time when we were driving to Texas. He was all, "I'm huuungry, when are we gonna eeeat, mom? Can't we eat soon, I'm starving to death!"* Then he said, "Mom, what if peoples tummies glowed red like a stoplight when they were hungry, and if they were really hungry the tummy would start beeping like the microwave oven."
At the time it was just one of those cute thing he says. But here I was in this long and rather, um, serious, meeting, when right then and there I got that vision in my head of a room full of corporate people with glowing red tummies, illuminated through their shirts, and then the beeping would begin, one here, another there. Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
I embarrassed myself half to death when I tried to contain the spontaneous laughter that came out anyway through my nose and at the same time I had to press my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't simply burst out uncontrolled. A sorta snort-through-the-nose thing. Yeah. And my boss is sitting right there.
The next minute was the longest minute in my life, up until now, as I tried with great difficulty to contain myself by thinking about all kinds of things horrible to clear my head of the vision of a room full of glowing beeping tummies. I thought hard hard hard about people dying on the Titanic, about migraine headaches, about drinking a gulp of soured milk. It worked.
Finally it was time for lunch.
And eventually it was finally time to head home, on a Friday afternoon.
So glad it's Friday.
*We starve our kids when we drive to Texas. The peanuts and raisins and water and apples and bananas just leave them emaciated.
Comments