Let's Pretend This Never Happened (19 page)

At one of my jobs we’d have drills to see how easy it was to smuggle babies out of the building. One employee (usually a new hire, so that he or she wasn’t recognizable) was given a baby and everyone else in the building had to stop the person from sneaking out. It was a public building and none of our customers could know that we were doing a supersecret smuggled-baby drill, because it might seem unprofessional, so that made it harder. It was usually a fake baby, but you never knew whether it would be a real one brought from home. Today we had a drill and I stopped someone in the hall and wouldn’t let them go for fifteen minutes until security came, because I was sure it was the fake baby. It totally wasn’t the fake baby.

This morning we were all praying with the bishop at work (which is legal, because it’s a faith-based organization, but also weird because I still don’t understand how I got hired here, except that we need to do better background checks). There were about a hundred of us in the hallway when the bishop said—in this really loud and dramatic way—“Oh, heavenly Father: Hear our prayer!” Immediately some guy from engineering’s walkie-talkie blasts out, “COME IN, CHUCK!” and I had to walk out in the middle of the prayer because I totally snorted and was drawing attention to myself, because all I could think of was how I bet God was only half listening and then was all, “WTF? Did the bishop just call me Chuck?” This is when I realized I was probably not getting into heaven, unless God has one hell of a sense of humor, which He probably does because, hello? He’s making me work at a faith-based organization. I mean, He’s not forcing me work there, but I hear He kind of controls everything, so technically this is probably His fault. If anything, they should blame God for making me snort in the middle of the prayer. When I get fired I’ll have to remember to tell the bishop that.

Last week my boss told me to rewrite a twenty-page proposal on engagement benchmarking. I turned it in and he wrote a note on the cover that just said, “No, no. Not this.” I had no idea what he wanted, so I just put it off, and then when he came in this morning and told me he needed the final draft in a half-hour I printed out the exact same one as before, but this time on prettier paper. This afternoon he brought the whole team together to tell everyone I was the perfect example of being able to listen to constructive criticism.

There’s a very mean girl down the hall who’s trying to get me fired. I’m no good with confrontation, so whenever I say, “Have a wonderful day,” to her out loud, I’m really saying, “Be nice to me or I will stab you in the face with a fork,” in my head. I wish her a wonderful day at least once an hour. She’s starting to get paranoid and jumpy about it, but there’s really nothing she can do, because she can’t complain about me wishing her a wonderful day without sounding totally insane. This is why you should never mess with nonconfrontational people. Because they’re too unstable to second-guess. And because they’re totally the kind of people who could suddenly snap, and stab you in the face with a fork.

Last month the general manager came in with his usual complaint that the employment office wasn’t pulling its weight, because his area was still chronically understaffed. We told him we were running behind and gave him the “Never-hire-these-people-unless-we-find-out-that-we’re-all-getting-fired-next-week” folder and told him to let us know which ones he wanted us to call in for interviews. He returned the file the next day and has not complained since then.

Today at lunch my coworker (Jason) was telling me about a documentary he’d seen about
this woman who had a tiny upper body, but everything from her waist down was enormous, and I was all, “My God. I bet her labia is huge,” and that’s when Jason put down his fork and said he wouldn’t eat lunch with me anymore. But then I pointed out that scientifically it makes sense that her labia would be enormous. If I were her, I’d roll it up with binder clips. Or foam curlers. And then on special occasions she lets it out of the curlers and bingo: spiral perm. Totally ready for prom.

“Hi,” Jason said, waving his hands in front of my face sarcastically. “I’m eating tuna salad over here.”

“But just imagine what you could do with it. If you got attacked you could throw it on someone to swat them back, or you could catch children jumping out of burning buildings. I bet it’s flat as a pancake too, since it’s being squished by her legs. You could put a lantern behind it and make shadow puppets. It’s like a gift no one can ever use. Except I would
totally
use my giant labia. I’d entertain the whole world with it. Because that’s the kind of person I am.
Saintlike.
If I had an enormous labia I would change the world with it.”

Jason threw his tuna salad in the trash. “So the only thing holding you back is . . . how small your labia is?”

“Well, it’s not like a
handicap,”
I retorted. “I mean, I get by.”

Jason was silent.

“I’d say it’s roomy, but compact. Like a balloon valance. Or a Honda Accord.”

Then Jason got all weird and yelled, “You aren’t supposed to tell me your vagina is like a Honda Accord! WE WORK TOGETHER,” and I’m all, “You brought it up!” Then there was this awkward silence while I tried to look penitent and Jason tried to look stern, but technically I was just thinking about how a giant labia would be a great lap blanket on cold nights, and Jason was probably wondering what a balloon valance was. So then I was all, “It’s like a tiny curtain,” and Jason was like,
“What!?”
and I just said,
“Oh, never mind.”

Today an applicant who couldn’t pass the typing test blamed it on me for giving her “a trick keyboard because the keys weren’t in alphabetical order.” I tried to explain that all keyboards are laid out the same way and she called me a liar. I apologized and told her that if she wanted to bring in an alphabetized keyboard, I’d be happy to hook it up for her so she could retest, and she yelled, “I’M NOT GOING TO PAY TO REPLACE YOUR SHODDY EQUIPMENT.” So I told her to go across the street to the computer store, find an alphabetical keyboard, and have them put it on our account. An hour later the computer store called to ask that we stop sending crazy people over there.

This afternoon my coworker, a sweet but sheltered girl named Collette, called me into her office. “Did you know that amputee porn is a thing? Because it is.
Amputee porn.”
She looked like she might be going into shock, and I considered finding a blanket to wrap her in. “This guy’s supervisor found porn in a printer, so she asked me to check his hard drive, and it’s
filled
with amputee porn.”

I apparently didn’t look shocked enough, because she looked at me and slammed her tiny fist on the desk, screaming: “AMPUTEE PORN.” Clearly she needed an intervention, as she was stuck in a porn loop.

I pulled up one of the pictures, a legless naked woman. “Okay, see? This isn’t even amputee porn. It’s just
 . . . bad Photoshop.
You can tell because there are shadows where her legs were before they were airbrushed out.
I mean, it’s still totally porn.
It’s just not real amputee porn.”