Syrup of Whitney

PLAYERS:
co-worker 1 - Male, 30's, effeminent, talkative
co-worker 2 - Female, 30's, overly friendly
co-worker 3 - Male, 40's, grumbly

SCENE:
Co-worker 3 sits at his desk pounding out some early morning work, he is bordered to his left by co-worker 2 and to his right by co-worker 1, sitting at their desks. Co-worker 3 is listening to the others yap away on the phone needlessly and endlessly. Unbeknownst, he is becoming agitated. Co-workers 1 & 2 hang up with the people they are talking to, get up from their desks and begin to remove the St. Patrick's Day decorations from their cubicles. Co-worker 3 continues to hammer away at work, he is now quarrelsome. Co-workers 1 & 2 finally finish throwing away the last of the St. Patrick's decorations, only to each grab a CVS bag from under their desks and start putting up Easter decorations, all the while making the smallest small talk ever recorded in human history. Which ends with the following......


Co-worker 2 - Oh I love that sticker, that bunny is SO cute!
Co-worker 1 - Oh really, you can have it (fake laugh), I have others.
Co-worker 2 - Oh Thank you, I love it. (faker laugh)
Co-worker 1 - Hey, guess what I did.
Co-worker 2 - Hey, what did you do?
Co-worker 1 - Hey, I bought a CD last night, Whitney Houston's greatest hits!
Co-worker 2 - Oh my God, that is awesome. (fake laugh)
Co-worker 1 - Oh my God, it is awesome. (faker laugh)

Co-worker 3 stands up from his desk in a swirl, holding his hands to his neck as if choking.

Co-worker 3 - Oh my god, I swallowed poison, does anyone have any Syrup of Ipecac!?!? Wait, no, nevermind, it's too late for that....
Quick!!! Put on that Whitney Houston CD.....NOW!!!!

Q: What did the Chinese Chef say to his assistant?

A: "I'm glad you're my co-wokker."

I approach the building from the north, she from the east. She is not aware of me yet, I keenly of her. We are equidistant from the building’s front door and my gait is niftier than hers, however, my walkway is meandering and will conveniently lead me behind her stride once our paths converge – inside myself I shout joyous gratitude to the person who, some many days ago, drew the plans for this courtyard and decided to make the north sidewalk a winding one. At what point, I wonder, will she sense me. Now, she knows I am behind her, I know it. I need not make a feign noise to alert her of my existence. She reaches the door just far enough ahead of me where she can open it and walk through and not be rude by letting it close behind her. Instead, she holds it for me, without looking at me. I do not at all make quicker my move to oblige. I make her wait a few seconds longer than she thought she would have. This is now a game. I intend to win. I nod my head as a thank you. She smiles distantly. We walk side by side in the foyer to the lift. She drifts back just slightly (or did I heighten my pace?), allowing me the advance so I can be the one who calls the elevator. The intermission is brief, but within it, my glance captures her silhouette against the blinding daylight streaming in from the opposite door. On the eighth day, God created…
The bell rings, the door opens. She enters, as do I. She presses for the fourth floor, my floor as well. There is a space between us, although there isn’t: the tiny atmosphere that accompanies our ascension is one space, in it, we are one together. She is sorting through her mail. By its contents, I know who she is. She lives in a town-home, not an apartment building, not a house. I know this by the large volume of mail she has gathered. One doesn’t let one’s mail accumulate like that unless one has to visit a mailbox located a distance from their residence. She’s the kind of gal who doesn’t visit her mailbox often. This does not indicate she is a very busy person but that she usually returns to her home late at night. For now it just past 9A.M. and she has collected her last weeks worth of mail on the way out rather than on the way in. She does not hide anything, nor does she even think to. She doesn’t care who may see what kind of an array of items she has either sent for and now received or have been gratuitously forwarded to her. Clothing catalogs dominate the stack, a full assortment from high fashion to- the bell interrupts my study. The journey completed, she lets the viewed materials fall back into the pile. The door opens. Inadvertently, I am standing closer to it than she is. Taking the opportunity to test me, she waits an instant longer a moment before moving. I pass the test, I do not move, but neither do I make a gesture for her to depart first, which she does. She goes her way, I go mine, we say goodbye without speaking. We’ll save the first words for another time. I’ll savor the anticipation.

Rain was in the air but it was not falling from the sky. The grounds were damp with it. I approached my office building the same yet differently. I looked up at the archway and wondered if I could reach it if I jumped. I thought that I could but I wouldn’t. I would save that morsel of satisfaction for another day, a Saturday perhaps, when I was wearing sneakers rather than in a suit, when no one was around. I didn’t feel the need to prove I could reach it to anyone, not even to myself. I just wanted to touch it. To have that trace of a moment when the quick flesh of my fingers would slap against the cold, hard, dead cement. The rest of that day, when it came, would be comparably insignificant.

Highlights from a doctor visit


I was given a questonnaire to determine if I was bipolar, depressed or both. One of the questions was, "Sometimes, do you feel more confident than usual, like you are smarter than everybody?" It was one of the few I agreed with. The doctor went over the test and re-read the question and my answer. He said, "So sometimes you're more confident that other times and you think you're smarter than everybody?" I was quick to correct him, "I am always confident, not just sometimes. And I am smarter than everybody, I don't just think it."

Man, did he have his pen out in a flash wanting to write a prescription.

I stopped him.

Later, he suggested I cut out my consumption of alcohol entirely. He nodded and asked me if I wanted a prescription that would help me to stop drinking. I thought he was joking and laughed. He said he could in fact get me a medicine that would make me stop drinking. He didn't look like he was kidding.

I said, "Yeah, really, you can prescribe heroin?"

"No," He said, "I can give you a pill that makes you vomit whenever you drink alcohol."

In my day, drug dealers worked from street corners. Now, they have offices in medical buildings.

A Healthy Lunch

Part One - Broccoli

Instead of driving to McDonald's for a double cheeseburger, I walked to Publix for broccoli and an apple. Thought it would a healthy thing to do. My blood pressure is high and I get winded far too easy, so you got to start somewhere right? It was a pleasant day so the walk over to Publix was agreeable. In order to get there from the building where I work, you need to traverse a large parking lot, caddy-cross a busy intersection and walk around a strip mall's thoroughfare. Which on the way there was quite manageable. I purchased a shiny, perfectly shaped red delicious apple, the first I was going to eat in years, and a small package of broccoli flourets - it was either the broccoli or fresh green beans, which I actually would have preferred but the package was too big for me to eat (and too pricey for me to purchase). I took my nutritious lunch to the small indoor mall adjacent to the supermarket where I sit in peace sometimes. Unfortunately, the bench at the far end of the mall, which is usually deserted, was being used by a round man who sat with his arms outstretched, laying claim to that particular parcel of real estate. I settled for a seat near the center of the mall where there were four benches that faced each other in a square design. It was more crowded than I care for - only two other people but I usually like no company at all when I take my mid-day leave from work - however, I did get a bench all to myself. There was an elderly woman sitting on the bench to my left. She looked like she was trying to figure out just when would be long enough to make sitting and do nothing effective. To my right sat a fast lady. She was twittering through her various papers rapidly in between bites from some unknown sandwich meal. I placed my plastic bag on the bench next to me and took out the flourets. I punctured a hole in the plasticine and tore open a gash from which I could extract the small trees. I grabbed a green cluster that was a good size, judged by me as a good size so that I could drop it in its entirety into my mouth. Plunk, crunch, crunch. It worked. Delicious and healthy. Hey, this ain't so hard. Looking down to determine my next morsel, I spotted another perfectly sized piece and proceeded to devour that as well. Then another and another and anot- I then realized that broccoli is a vegetable best served with a beverage. I had not, however, allowed myself the remaining funds enough with which to purchase said drink item. Oh well, make the best of it. Another hunk and another, slowly, inconspicuously though, they were getting larger in size until my mouth was saturated with tiny fragments of green matter, teeny little dots of broccoli leaves cluttering between my teeth and cheeks. So deep were these bits that I couldn't drag them out into the chewing area with my tongue. The little specs were gumming up all around the outer edges of my mouth. It was at that very most inopportune moment that what I thought was the impossible occurred. I heard a tiny squeal from my right. It sounded almost mouse like but I was able to make out the words through my sudden panic at being intruded upon: the old woman was asking me if I knew the time. And I was very clearly not wearing a watch. Just as fast as the assault came from my right another came from my left. I was flanked! The fast lady quickly stammer-asked me if it was raining out. And it was very clearly a sunny day. My polite streak transcended this rude behavior from my neighbors and I tried to answer the old woman first, to tell her that while I was not certain of the precise time it was no doubt some time around 1PM as I had left work at approximately 12:40PM. All I heard myself saying was, "Phhblllt nommo brrubber libberim-" I could see the green dust fly from my mouth, chew digested but unswallowed dry molecules of vitamin rich broccoli. Before I had a chance to recover, the fast lady repeated her query about the weather. Again, my utter propensity for politeness took hold and I couldn't resist, "Ffflrrrourim waaaburin dunfferubbin..." They both laughed out loud at my despair. I only then realized, they had been watching me the whole time. What a fool attempting to eat broccoli without a beverage. I got up and left, tossing the remaining broccoli into a trash receptacle. By the time I had cleared my mouth of the small edible shrubbery, my tongue was sore from digging into the vast reservoirs and recesses of my mouth to collect the grainy remnants of flourets.

And the worm still struggles, always it shall. But yet, struggling is life.

Someone thought they were dying of shun, a scourge of the outcast. Secretly going to the doctor, they found out they were dying of normal. They were terribly relieved. The doctor stated, "With shun you could have lived far longer; normal will kill much sooner."

"Yes, aren't I lucky!" Said they, without the slightest hint of sarcasm.