The god damn water cooler didn’t have any god damn cups, damn. I looked around and began to panic when the only even vaguely suitable container in immediate sight was the bit where you put the staples in a stapler. I only went to the water cooler because I was bored and normally I don’t even bother drinking from it but the injustice of it all just seemed to get to me. I didn’t want to look like an idiot walking round the office without any obvious purpose so after returning to my desk and avoiding some awkward questions about a wet stapler I sat down to have a wrestle with my desk drawer.
The desk drawer sticks, let’s just leave it at that. I didn’t even need anything out of it, in fact I’m fairly sure it’s empty but getting frustrated with the drawer is infinitely more satisfying that getting frustrated with work because you know it will always come open in the end, that’s what it’s for after all. Anyway, I had a go and after a few choice swear words and sideways looks from my neighbours I had it open an inch. Admiring my handiwork and a squeeze of the trusty bicep I set to work again, pushing it back in only for it to get stuck in the exact place when pulled again.
I persevered for another 10 minutes gradually becoming louder in my grunting and swearing. With an almighty tug and a cry of “come on you b******!” I managed half way. By now the sideways glances had become glares and despite my displaying my trophy of a half open drawer containing 6 bent paper clips barely resembling a bracelet and a paper aeroplane which had flown its last disciplinary meeting they weren’t satisfied for some reason.
In hindsight I shouldn’t have lost my temper, it’s just a drawer, an inanimate object, incapable of causing anyone any harm. I looked upon my vanquished foe like old friends settling an arm wrestling wager, consoling the drawer on a battle well fought I put my heel on the draw and gave it a kick, testing the waters. My chair rolled backwards and the woman behind me kicked up a huge fuss, making a scapegoat out of me because she had careless dropped some papers and jumped on the opportunity to blame an unlucky guy stumbling onto the scene. Ignoring something about a broken toe and a law suit I went back to the drawer, lifted and pushed. It slid begrudgingly back into place, preparing its battle plan for tomorrow.
I asked my neighbour if he had a stapler and went to get a drink.
The clock began its crawl towards the hour mark, I watched it for a while, I became engrossed in the way you could see the minute hand move ever so slightly as the second hand relentlessly lapped it. 12pm, the oasis, the blessed hour in the day which, at 9am seems like next Christmas. I’m not a religious man but I’m not ashamed to say I routinely make deals with God about bringing my lunch hour quicker, then when that doesn’t work, with the devil.
As I watched the minute hand click into place over the hour hand, I reneged on all my deals made with all my deities as I raced for the door and with the grace of a sea turtle sashaying over to his lover smashed the office screen door open and jammed my foot in the lift. I don’t know what it is about the hour between 12 and 1pm compared to the 3 preceding and the 4 pursuing, but it seems God only enjoys speeding up time when you don’t want him to. By the time I’d gotten down 4 floors in a lift, it was already 10 past, damn. I accused the receptionist, then the janitor and then the guy who drops off photocopier paper of changing the clock just to ruin my lunch hour, they all protested innocence, I swore to the lot of them that I would find out who is responsible. I was about to trounce their stolid reluctance to admitting their bare faced guilt with stone cold, unavoidable logic but the horrific discovery that whoever had indeed masterminded this sabotage, had also managed to change my watch tipped me over the edge. I deemed that even my espionage inquiries weren’t worth wasting my lunch hour. I fled for the door, if the newsagents has any more than 4 people in the queue before I can get my lunch, I wouldn’t have time for my usual haggle with Sanjay.
I demonstrated to Sanjay that the price of 6 Mars bars and 2 cans of Apple Tango had risen on average by 2.8p per month for the past 3 months. Using a full run down on the prices I had paid in the afore stated timeframe, I proved beyond on any shadow of doubt that his shop would be on the downturn before Christmas. By the time I had bartered a space pencil and 6 cola bottles for the 7.4p difference in price since March, a rather large and irritable queue had formed behind me, I told Sanjay I obviously wasn’t the only one to notice the steep increase in price and if he would like to keep his loyal customer base, he should rethink the latest price-list revision. As I ambled out the shop, I heard profuse apologies mingled with stiff upper lipped observations about the service and wondered why I hadn’t been offered an apology about the prices.
I wandered along the pavement wondering why the office had to be situated in such a dank part of town, why the building couldn’t be along a lovely stretch of river where the swans glided along gracefully and the ducks trundled behind jealously, or opposite some meadows promising warm soft pews that one could spend hours revelling in the contrast of industry and nature. Instead of these havens of natural beauty, opposite our office block was in fact, an identical office block. Protruding equally as high and exactly as ugly into the overcast sky, one could easily forget which side of the road you were on. The only difference between the 2 were a bench with 3 of the 5 slats missing or broken, and a wire bin that only ever seemed to be full of newspaper and cider bottles. One night a friend and I, went down and moved the bench and bin to the opposite side to see whether people would indeed be confused. However, in the middle of my devious scam I realized I had glazed over the tiny fact that the very people I was trying to con, weren’t actually people at all. They are machines, they enter, “pop-out”, re-enter and go home everyday within a 60 second timeframe, they don’t look around when they come out, do not take a second to relish the end of the day, take in a deep breath of air that hasn’t be re-circulated constantly through the conditioning system, they are already catching up on paperwork by the time they have revolved around the glass door. Indeed, the only poor soul human enough to fall for the trickery was the local homeless man who chose the door well exactly opposite his usual to vomit into around early afternoon.
