So I was sitting at work the other day, simultaneously arranging for travel, formatting a document I had moved from Word to Excel, and knitting myself an afghan (not an Afghani – and ooh, boy, if you’ve ever made that mistake you know why I double-check those directions now!) when I realized that the whole world depends on me.
Hard to believe, isn’t it? The whole world!
And yet there it is. For some reason, I – and you and you and you, it seems – have drawn the short straws here and will be required to toil until just moments before our deaths.
Now how in the wide, wide world of sports do you suppose that happened?
Was it because of Senior Skip Day, all those years ago? My mom said nothing good would come of it. Is this what she meant?
Was it because I laughed – hysterically, true, but I laughed – at a relative’s funeral? I didn’t want to! I bit the inside of my mouth until it bled, but I couldn’t stop; and worse yet, it caused my sister to join in. We hung our heads, hoping our jerking shoulders would lead those around us to believe we were sobbing, but it didn’t fool our aunt, who turned around and whispered, smiling, “I know what you’re doing”, which led us to both laugh and burn with shame at the same time.
Was it because I ate the recommended limit of sugar-free dark chocolates the other day, risking a testing of the sugar-free-chocolate-as-laxative theory I’ve been hearing so much about lately?
For whatever reason, the weight of the world is upon my freckled shoulders again.
So is there anything I can get you, while I’m up? I’ve got India on hold with questions on Outlook, Wisconsin is drunk and threatening to come over with laundry – and you just know we’ll be up all night – and some guy in Texas wants to fight because he thinks I took his coat but he didn’t even have a coat when he came in, so I don’t know what he’s talking about…
Sigh.
Hard to believe, isn’t it? The whole world!
And yet there it is. For some reason, I – and you and you and you, it seems – have drawn the short straws here and will be required to toil until just moments before our deaths.
Now how in the wide, wide world of sports do you suppose that happened?
Was it because of Senior Skip Day, all those years ago? My mom said nothing good would come of it. Is this what she meant?
Was it because I laughed – hysterically, true, but I laughed – at a relative’s funeral? I didn’t want to! I bit the inside of my mouth until it bled, but I couldn’t stop; and worse yet, it caused my sister to join in. We hung our heads, hoping our jerking shoulders would lead those around us to believe we were sobbing, but it didn’t fool our aunt, who turned around and whispered, smiling, “I know what you’re doing”, which led us to both laugh and burn with shame at the same time.
Was it because I ate the recommended limit of sugar-free dark chocolates the other day, risking a testing of the sugar-free-chocolate-as-laxative theory I’ve been hearing so much about lately?
For whatever reason, the weight of the world is upon my freckled shoulders again.
So is there anything I can get you, while I’m up? I’ve got India on hold with questions on Outlook, Wisconsin is drunk and threatening to come over with laundry – and you just know we’ll be up all night – and some guy in Texas wants to fight because he thinks I took his coat but he didn’t even have a coat when he came in, so I don’t know what he’s talking about…
Sigh.
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20 comments:
Why? Cumulative effect of all those sins. Seems right to me. Nose to the grindstone, Pearl!
At least those of us condemned to work until death have a viable reason for existence unlike that pesky 1% who are just taking up space and money. Why do I keep humming "Everything I do....I do it for"
Fortunately I went to school on Senior Skip Day.
That Texas guy is an imposter. We don't need coats here.
I'm still on hold...
waiting....
waiting....
Oh - never mind, I'll book it online
I was a pall bearer at my grandmother's funeral and my cousin (2 years older) whispered to me about a one-night-stand he had with the organist (she was a cute young thing, heck we were all young then). I was 18 and it didn't seem right that I was hearing such a run-down in church... So karma does catch up with you, eh?
I want to know what I (and you) did in our past lives that we have this kind of stuff foisted on us in this one?
No really. I NEED to know.
I believe with my dying breath I'll still be signing road department payroll checks. I wonder if the bank will know I'm dead when the fellows cash them the next day.
My unfortunate death scenarios don't take place at work; they're more along the lines of freezing to death after accidentally locking myself out while fetching the mail in my nightie in February, or falling out the second story window while shaking out a mat, or ... you know, dumb stuff, really dumb. At least dying at work has a nice whiff of hard worker to it.
Well, since you're up and you asked, I'd like a couple of those sugar-free dark chocolates, please. :D
Hari OM
Hey ho, hey ho, 'tis off to work we go; we work all day, no rest, no play;
hey ho, hey heheheheheheheheheheeheh cough, splutter.....
YAM xx
I'll just complete Yamini's comment from above.
Namaste.
I have no idea what that means but I have friends that use it from time to time.
And I have no idea what your post means today, either.
I always feel like I come here to learn: you don't write hugely long posts, but you pack all the essence of EVERYTHING into them. The Senior Skip Day line is one I envy (Can I please have written it?), and the paragraph about getting the giggles at an inappropriate time sums up half my life.
It doesn't even matter what you were writing about; I lived it.
Senior ditch day? It all might be my fault then. I'm pretty sure I ditched more school days than I attended in high school. Okay, junior high also...
Funny stuff Pearl!
Unfortunately I HAVE died several times at work...when the kid wrote his name in urine, the girl told me her dad was a naked American, too as we were studying Indians. I could never look at him after that.
Just when I think I have seen it and heard it all...
The "WHOLE" World .........:) Hug B
"Sigh."
Steve Jobs holding for you on line 7. There are no black turtlenecks in heaven. A situation he requests you remedy immediately.
And Alberta thinks I stole his fifteen bucks. But I didn't. I swear!
I have known people I predicted would get out of the coffin to get an oil change or answer a phone, but you Pearl, I think you would only sit up for a smoke and a G&T, and if I was on hand I would produce the requested and smile.
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