The Cubicle Next Door (6 page)

And someone was honking at
me
.

I’m a good Christian girl, so I don’t give people the finger or roll down my window and scream at them, but I do begin to drive extra slowly, and somehow this always seems to block the honker from changing lanes or doing whatever it is he wants to do so badly.

Just trying to set a good example.

I moseyed down Highway 24 and got stuck at the stoplight at Twenty-sixth. And the honker came right up to my bumper and honked. Again. And of course he—I could assume it was a person of the male gender because women will usually just cut a person off instead of harass them—was in an SUV, so I couldn’t actually see his face. Just his grill. A polite reminder that, should he wish to, he could roll over my car and squish me like a bug.

Driver’s exams should include psychological profiles.

The light changed and I ever so slowly rolled through the intersection, but I needed to pick up speed. Eighth was just a block ahead, and I wanted to make the light. While I was switching gears, the SUV roared around me on the left and then jumped in my lane.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that jerks were better off in front of me than behind me. Then I saw the person wave. And that’s when I recognized the vehicle.

It was Joe.

Of course it was Joe.

He was the only person I knew awake enough in the morning to recognize a fellow commuter.

So I waved. What else was I supposed to do? And then I let him make the light while I fiddled with my stick shift. It’s temperamental. And I didn’t need to play cutesy-poo hopscotch all the way up I-25.

By the time I got to work, he was drinking a cup of coffee and chatting with Estelle as if he were her best friend.

He waved when he saw me walking down the hall and then continued talking.

I got my own cup of coffee from the break room—ceramic mug, not a Styrofoam cup—and took a sip. I walked back to my office and set it on the bookcase behind my desk, and then I sat in front of the computer and started my morning routine.

Checked e-mail. Deleted everything from Jimmy Pitts, department crackpot.

Opened and replied to everything from Lt. Col. Miller, deputy department head for personnel.

Left everything else alone until later.

I ran through my systems checks.

And then I visited gazette.com, the Internet home of Colorado Springs’ newspaper. It’s a good newspaper. And by reading it online, I saved at least half a tree every year. One small sacrifice for me, one small victory for the environment. It’s little things, compounded over time, that add up to a big thing. I try to do my part. I figure it’s the least I can do.

It really bothered me to see so many people in town trashing the planet. And I included myself in that group. Sometimes, even I was too lazy to collect my dead batteries and take them to the county waste collection site. Sometimes, even I throw old printer toner cartridges in the trash instead of taking them to the base waste collection site.

But I do collect bottles and cans. And I recycle plastics. How hard is that? They even come to your house around here and pick them up.

And I’m not an overly zealous recycler. I’m not an in-your-face environmentalist. Just a concerned citizen. Maybe I read my Bible wrong, but in my version it says God created the earth. And everything else. Sure, Adam and Eve screwed up and started the planet rolling downhill, but that doesn’t mean we have to push it along. It’s not very complicated. It only involves basic principles of etiquette. Share. Be nice. Use some common sense. The greatest mind in the universe created the earth and everything on it. Seems like we could show it a little more respect. But then, that’s my other theory. I think Americans in general have stopped respecting the planet, each other, and even their bodies. And that’s why I save my squeeze cheese and Bugles for special occasions only.

Like Fridays.

So I was alternating scanning my electronic version of the
Gazette
with sipping coffee at the bookshelf when Joe walked in.

“Did you know Estelle’s son has cancer?”

“No.” I tried to keep my visits to Estelle on an as-needed basis.

“It’s not looking good. She might have to fly back to take care of him.”

“When was he diagnosed?”

“March.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

Cancer. The thought of your body consuming itself from the inside was the worst sort of horror I could imagine. Much worse than the B-grade horror films Grandmother and her friends loved to watch. There were few things that truly terrified me.

Cancer was one.

Death was the other.

Not mine.

Grandmother’s.

THE CUBICLE NEXT DOOR BLOG

Waste not

At least half of the environmental and health problems of America could be solved if Americans stopped snacking. Or if they started snacking properly. People eat what’s readily available; I understand that. But why can’t people take two seconds to throw a bag of carrots into their shopping cart and then take it into work with them to snack on? Why do they have to grab individually-sized packages of chips and candy? First of all, they end up paying more for the privilege than if they bought a family-sized bag and ate them a handful at a time. Because that’s all there is in those tiny cellophane packages: a handful. Second, it’s inefficient to wrap millions of tiny things instead of thousands of large things. It costs more money and takes more energy. Third, what happens to all of those tiny packages? I’ll give you a hint: They don’t get recycled. And yet those snacks still keep being made and the packaging still keeps being produced. Why? Here’s my theory. The people who eat those kinds of things are fundamentally lazy. If they can’t be bothered to make a wise economic choice—to buy a large portion of something and divvy it up themselves—then they certainly can’t be bothered to make a wise environmental choice.

I’ve come to the conclusion we all practice our religion with the opening of our wallets…and we either worship ourselves and our own convenience or we worship something else.

Posted on June 15 in
The Cubicle Next Door | Permalink

Comments

I couldn’t care less about the environment, but I do care that I’m the one who usually has to clean up the mess in the break room.

Posted by:
justluvmyjob | June 16 at 07:33 AM

We have to worship something other than ourselves, or we’ll all turn into pigs. Wait—we already have!

Posted by:
philosophie | June 16 at 06:41 PM

Six

T
he following day, Wednesday, was my birthday. It was also bridge night. All of Grandmother’s friends came over to play. All three of them. I always tried to be around because I was the Designated Substitute. And I always tried to make them something to eat because for years I’d also been the Designated Taste Tester of dozens of batches of cookies made with secret ingredients, like ground-up popcorn, lemon-lime soda, and Snappy Tom tomato drink.

Knowledge is power.

The only cookies I eat now are the kind I buy from Wild Oats.

The ladies were all in their early-80s. And, amazingly, all of them lived alone. Two of them still drove, although they carpooled on Wednesdays.

None of them ate much. I think Grandmother was the healthiest of the bunch and even she picked at her food.

I baked things like banana or zucchini bread. Things they wouldn’t feel too guilty about eating. That night, after dinner, I had made Fruit Cocktail Cake. A birthday cake they wouldn’t feel bad about eating and that wouldn’t send their blood sugar levels hurtling off the charts.

Grandmother kept me company in the kitchen while I baked and then cleaned the dishes. At 7:00, the doorbell rang. On any other evening, any of the women would have walked up the path and kept going until they reached the back door, which opened into the kitchen, but bridge night was special. They all dressed up and they all came in through the front door. It had been held at Grandmother’s house for as long as I could remember.

Grandmother got to her feet and went to let the ladies in.

We’d already set up the card table and positioned four chairs around it. I gave them about ten minutes to get seated and then went in and took orders for drinks.

“Jackie! Good week?” Adele smiled up at me. She was my favorite. She had sparse tufts of carrot-orange hair she carefully fluffed over her scalp. She wore purple tracksuits and glasses on a chain around her neck. She is one of the nicest people I know.

“It’s been fine. What would you like?”

“A tall glass of ice water will do.”

Ice water had been “doing” for the last 20 years.

“Thelma?”

“Milk.”

Thelma was a tank in every sense of the word.

“Betty? What can I get for you?”

“If you don’t have any gin, I’ll have to settle for water.” Betty still thought she was 40. Still thought if she fluttered her eyelashes enough and dropped enough hints, she could have anything for the asking. Including men in a wide variety of ages. For an 80-year-old, she was extremely well-maintained.

I got the drinks, including a glass of milk for Grandmother, and passed them around.

The ladies insisted on singing “Happy Birthday” to me. Then they each gave me a present. I could tell, without opening, what each gift was. Adele’s was bound to be something for my hope chest. It didn’t seem to matter to her that I didn’t have one. Betty’s would be a compact of makeup or a vial of perfume; hope sprang eternal. Thelma’s was always something useful, like a can of mace. Grandmother’s would be a donation to one of my favorite charities.

I opened the gifts. Thanked the donors. Displayed them on the coffee table.

Then I went upstairs, changed clothes, and went to work on my blog. I’d thought of a few more changes to make. I was interrupted a few minutes later.

“Jackie? Jackie!” I could hear Grandmother’s voice calling me from downstairs.

I yelled back from my room. “What?”

“Are you there?”

“What?”

“Jackie!”

“What!” Everything about Grandmother was aging gracefully except for her eardrums. They’d already pulled up stakes and headed to Arizona. I went to the top of the stairs where she could see me.

“You have a visitor.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

Odd. Grandmother knew everyone.

Adele crept up behind Grandmother, put a hand on her arm, and leaned toward the stairs, looking up at me. “It’s a man!” She thought she was whispering, but she wasn’t. And as soon as she said “man,” I knew whom she meant.

Joe.

He was the only person in Manitou Springs Grandmother didn’t know.

And he had to show up on bridge night.

I used to wonder what God would give me if he ever thought I needed a thorn in my side. Now I knew for sure: Joe.

“I’ll be right down.”

I went back to my room and pulled a T-shirt on over my tank top. Not that he was here for sightseeing, but…well…I don’t know.

I went down the stairs, leaning on the railing as I went so the stairs wouldn’t squeak. I wanted to see what Mr. Congeniality would do with a room full of geriatric belles.

I tiptoed across the front entry and peered around the corner. He was looking at pictures. Grandmother’s friends had gotten out their wallets and were accosting him with the photos they’d stashed inside. I didn’t have to see them to know what the pictures were. Their granddaughters. They were shameless. All of them.

And I’d bet money Grandmother thought she had a leg up on the competition because her granddaughter was there, in person.

“A very pretty girl, Mrs. Robinson.”

“Thelma. You can call me Thelma. Please.”

Adele had put her glasses on. She shoved her wallet right on top of Thelma’s. “This is my granddaughter, Lisa.”

“She looks very nice.”

Betty actually elbowed Adele in the ribs. And when Adele looked over at her, she took the opportunity to hold her wallet up as far as she could. It barely cleared Joe’s elbow.

Grandmother spied me. “Jackie!” By the way she was smiling, I could tell I’d pegged her. She looked like a proud 4-H exhibitor at the State Fair.

Joe had taken Betty’s wallet from her hand and was still looking at it. The photo was probably of her granddaughter, Nikki. She was one of those naturally blond and breezy California girls. And she was kind too. I’d met her the summer she divorced her third husband. She’d come out to Manitou for a break.

Joe looked over at me and grinned.

“Can I do something for you?” My plan was to get him to the kitchen and then scoot him out the door as quickly as possible.

“Yeah. Do you have a ladder I can borrow?”

The ladies’ eyes were bouncing between us as if they were watching a tennis match. It was making me feel uncomfortable. “If you can come out to the garage…?”

“Ladies, it was nice to meet you.”

They twittered and fluttered back toward the card table.

Joe paused. Then he turned back toward the table. “What are you playing?”

I started toward him, intending to grab his arm, kick him behind the kneecaps, club him over the head, do anything to make him leave.

Adele was the one who answered. “Bridge. Do you play? We’re always looking for a substitute.”

Liar! Maybe they had been ten years ago, when the other half of the original group of eight was still alive. But I was the only substitute they needed now.

“I play poker.” He made it sound like a question. As if they might want to play. I could guarantee they wouldn’t. Wednesday nights were sacred.

“Poker? What do you think?” Adele queried the group. Everyone nodded. She turned toward Joe. “You in?”

“I’m in. Is there an extra chair?”

Betty headed toward the dining room. She was probably planning on placing Joe’s chair right next to her own. I really should have followed to carry the chair for her, but I was still gaping at the scene in horror. “You can’t play poker! You play bridge!” What was happening here?