I Must Keep an Eye on This One

Jeff walks past me, arching his back and rolling his head from shoulder to shoulder.  “So how are you running your chunk blocks?”

I turn to see Allen – my double-wide cube mate, my introverted source of wry amusement – lean into his chair, raise both arms above his head and settle into a clasped hand cradle at the back of his head.  “I haven’t.  I’ve been working on the gooey.”

Allen is working on a gooey.

I laugh aloud, which they both ignore.  Being a highly trained perfessional and knower of many things, I understand that he is referring to a GUI, and not a gooey, but I prefer my own interpretation.

And I shall insist upon using it.

The truth is that I am daily confronted by things that I do not understand.  Gooeys, for example.  The popularity of Looney Tunes leather jackets.  The people who walk barefoot downtown.  The woman on the bus whose hair maintains seemingly permanent three-inch black roots in a sea of white cotton-candy fluff. 

There is so much to know.

Jeff leaves, and I turn to Allen.

“How do you do it?” I say.  “How do you know so much?”

He smiles.  “Do I?”

I frown at him.  “Are you saying you don’t?”

“Well I know I know the difference between a GUI and a gooey,” he says.

My mouth drops.  “What?  How do you – “

He holds up a hand.  “Pearl,” he says.  “Please.”