My Talent, and even weirder people

ring ring.

Me: Hello?

Lady K: {trembly voice} Hi, Mom?

Me: (omigod, she had an accident] Hi honey, how are you?

LK: I’m [pause] fine. [pause] I have a question for a fellow flake.

Me: [hm] Go ahead.

LK: What do you do when you lock your keys in the car?

Sheesh. Ask me something hard sometime. Ask me about something I haven’t done about three times per decade.

On another subject–the socio-psychological case of the Magic Giveaway Table. This one’s been going on for a while now. It all began when people started leaving books on a large table near the bathrooms. There were no signs, no discussion, but everyone knew you could take the book. After a while people started leaving other things–jewelry, vases, holiday decorations, cookie cutters, whatever. I was able to unload an automatic pill dispenser that was about 2 feet tall and held 20 pills a day. (It looked smaller in the picture…). That went on merrily for over a year.

Suddenly, the table disappeared. My secretary appeared in my office, fire spurting from her eyes. Some woman named Phyllis from Marketing, who had just moved into our building, hated the “messy” table, said it attracted bugs (??!!), and went all the way up to the president (who hates this sort of thing and foisted her off on this nice lady named Anita). My secretary and a couple other people went roaring off to Anita, who hadn’t realized this was such a big deal and finally, as a compromise, ordered a small cabinet with closed doors to be placed at that spot.

That went over like a lead balloon. To look inside you had to basically sit on the floor. Anyway, we all liked just being able to walk by, glance at the table casually for any goodies, and move on. Impromptu, like.

Petitions went around. Some people signed their names three times.

At an area meeting last week my exfriend Tom talked about other business, then brought up the Table. He was ironic and all that as is his way. Told us about the bugs complaint. Everyone booed and hissed. How are vases and books going to attract cockroaches (she claimed she’d seen one). Silverfish, maybe, but the books never stuck around that long. He then said it was his advice to say no more about it, the decisions were made, and to complain any more would be a bad career move. We all made ironic faces and muttered that it figured.

Two days later the Big Cheese over Tom held a division meeting. I skipped it, as is my wont, but my office mate went. He reported that the Big Cheese also ended the meeting by talking about the Table. He too seemed bemused, and explained that “someone” had felt that the table didn’t look professional, and that clients might see it. He said that when they could get the money we could have a bigger cabinet so we wouldn’t have to lie on the floor to look inside. Then he asked if anyone had a comment, and one woman from our area raised her hand and said we had been told it would be a bad career move to say any more about it. My exfriend Tom said “THAT comment is a bad career move” (she got away with it because she is highly regarded). Then everyone went home.

The next day a clipboard and pencil appeared on top of the tiny cabinet with a form that welcomed the reader to the cabinet and asked that people fill in lines giving their names and stating what they’d picked up or dropped off. Someone wrote “Is this a joke?” on the form, and it disappeared the next day.

A corporate sociologist would have a field day.