So there’s this girl at work. During every break she swivels around in her chair and indulges this mediocre guy’s attention. She doesn’t talk loud per se, but I hear her quite clearly from three chairs away. As is the case at everyone’s job, I’m certain, you know this girl and this guy. Okay, I admit it; I thought I was cool in high school, was popular, but not “it,” blah blah. So what I’m about to describe may come off as elitist or even condescending, but y’all know better than that. I can’t exactly pull that off too convincingly. I’m an observationist, see? And in an effort to call it like I see it – in my ongoing search for some truth – I’m going to tell you about them: Boy meets Girl, Girl talks Boy’s head off, Girl gloats as Boy flatters, Boy probes as Girl feigns coyness.
Girl: Like I said, you know her; she’s that same relatively non-descript looking girl that was in your college prep classes in high school. But I’ve gotta do better than non-descript, haven’t I? Girl looks sorta bored, spaced out, like a 20-something version of that lady in the American Gothic portrait. Plain ordinary face, round, with bulbous cheeks, large dark eyes and a face that in later years – whether gaunt or plump but probably plump – will develop jowls. Overall her countenance is unremarkable in the sense that she gives off no impression of mystery like, say, a Mona Lisa smile. She’s just plain lookin’. Well Girl and Boy were chattin’ it up when Girl cast her line …
Boy goes, “So, what do you do in the daytime, like before you come here?”
His voice doesn’t really match his appearance. He looks like one of those fellas who might have a Skoal ring and he definitely drives a Ford or Chevy pickup. He’s of a medium build, about 5’7”, with sandy brown hair that’s always covered by a baseball cap. He loves NASCAR. His voice is clear and strong, he speaks neither fast nor slow. If he was Southern – he looks like the Southern boys I know – he’d have that drawl of course.
“Oh, well usually I don’t, like, wake up until like 3 or somethin’ you know.” “Three? Holy shit. I mean, what are you doing?” “Oh, you know,” she says as her tiptoes twirl her chair around. She tosses her straight and plain brown hair. “I talk on the phone all night. I am always on the phone. Love talkin’ on the phone – with friends, guys, whoever. I love to talk you know.”
“Hey, you don’t say. You? Love to talk?”
I roll my eyes at such a staid attempt to be the funny guy.
Girl laughs, ha-ha-ha, tossing her hair once again playfully as she says, “Yeah, I mean, yeah.”
No bite, so she recasts her line.
“I mean, I need to be working out, you know, getting’ in shape for the summer. Gotta fit in that bikini!”
As she says that last line her voice trails upward all nice and perky. I do a double take, sliding my glasses up my nose. Aw hell naw. A bikini? Seriously, that ain’t cute, not even to think about. She is not petite, not small, not in any kinda shape for no bikini. I’m trying not to judge, but seriously, we’re like the same size. Not cute. Ugh.
“Yeah, I mean, I’m tryin’ to get back down.” “Down to what?” the bait-Boy asks. “Oh, like 130. That’s my ideal weight. I have small bone structure.”
I don’t believe this. I wish I’d have done a spittake – that’s how incredulous I felt hearing her say that.
“Of course, the only thing I’m gonna hate about it is I’ll probably lose my boobs and that’ll be so bad, right? I mean, you know men love the boobs, and that’s usually the first thing to go or so they say.” “Yeah, that’ll suck,” he says, smiling sheepishly.
I gotta take a walk. * * * * * * * Boy does a lot of friendly interrogating of Girl and it’s so predictable that I find myself reaching for those cheap ass headphones thinking shrieking static would be better than listening to this crud.
“So whaddya do on the weekends? Like this past weekend?” “What do you do after you leave here?” “Do you go out? Where ‘bout?” “Who with?”
Apparently, they live in opposite directions, but no worries, he’s still all about chattin’ her up. I think they should put her on the OLN (that one about outdoor life) channel, see how she fares at bass fishin’ because she seems to hook more compliments than there probably are fish in the sea.
“Ah, I like just got my haircut, and it’s so hard to get used to. I mean it was sooo long and now it’s like, not, and it’s hard to get used to it.” “Oh I think it looks really nice. It is long. Long is good,” Boy says eagerly as he leans forward in his chair. “Yeahhhh,” she pines as if twirling on some pole. “Long is always good.” They laugh. This black chick who sits right next to Girl turns in her chair rolling her eyes real hard. I shake my head. So does she. Between us, Raymond senses motion and thus begins with his eager ass redundant questions.
“So-ah. What do you think tonight will be?”
Now it’s my turn to swivel away and roll my eyes. * * * * * * Night before last, Raymond did what I wasn’t sure was actually possible: he upped the annoyance ante. Punk. We had another round of tests and per usual Raymond made sure he craned that snapworthy neck to see my scores.
“Oh-ah. No hundred percent-ah this time, huh?” The “huh” flops out like air expelled from a whoopee cushion. “Mmm hmm,” I say. “Well, ah-better luck nes’ time. Ha! Ha!” he laughs to fill the space as opposed to actually being funny. Ray doesn’t have a great sense of humor. No sense atall.
You ever see The Golden Child with Eddie Murphy? Where he goes to Tibet and remixes in the temple, “I-I-I-I-I-i-i- want the kni-i-i-i-i-fe. Ple-e-e-e-e-e-ase.” Anyway, there’s that little man, a cock-eyed street vendor, that Eddie runs into; they have a little misunderstanding about some money and Eddie goes to pick a fight and the sneaky little man calls him an asswipe.
Yeah. That “Mmm hmm” was an “asswipe” in disguise.
Do you know his punk tail is not even finished with said test? Naw, he ain’t done. Three or so minutes later, though, he finishes. I look. Now I am naturally competitive; I think it’s healthy to see and know what you’re up against in certain situations and this comes from a lifetime of athletic involvement. I used to apply this “by any means necessary” tactic to my schoolwork, too, which was largely a result of partly aiming to please, impress and meet the myriad expectations others set before me. By the end of high school though it became apparent that in the course of life, sure, I can get by with being smart, but I learned – had to accept – that somewhere, someone was always going to be smarter, just as someone will always seem to have or do something I want.
Sure I admit it’s not my favorite pill to swallow, but I take it because in the long run – as is oh so the case right now – it’s me, myself and I. So in a class where expectations are written on the board, no scholarships are available, and we all get the same “Super” sticker, I focus on exceeding their 90% accuracy, 4500 keystrokes.
Booyah. 97% at 5600 keystrokes. I’ll take that – I’m pissed that I made the silly mistakes that I made but it’s fine because I’m trying to let them know that I’m well-qualified, if not overly, for this job. Raymond asks everyone what they got when his neck isn’t able to crane and peep. He also talks about how the other people “jus’ not get.ting it,” and how “thas jus’ too bad reely, but iss not that hard reely.”
Jokah, take your 94% and 4900 keystrokes and bite my dust.
“You’ve gotten much faster you,” he says. “it usta be I finish before a you, but you’re quite good now.”
Let me tell you that Raymond is barely 21, first of all, and secondly, this shit annoys me in part because I just don’t understand why he won’t just shut up. What is it about people – foreign or not – who fail to grasp the obvious? Aren’t some forms of body language universal, I wonder? Averted eyes … grunted responses … zero eye contact … shoulders and head pointing straight ahead …. these must be open to interpretation. Apparently to Raymond and wherever he is from these things don’t mean, “Maybe you should shut it” or “This person does not want to talk to me possibly” but it must mean something else like, “I can reach her if I just keep talking.”
Raymond asks me if I went to college. I think, “Your mama went to college,” but I can’t remember where that came from.
“Yeah. Graduated.” I want to add, “with honors muthascrubba. Magna cum laude from the Honors College. Phi Beta Kappa asswipe.” But obviously I don’t. I did see Samuel L. Jackson on TV earlier so I realize that thought process was probably inspired by him.
“Oh reely?” he seems incredulous, as I begin to wonder whether it’s just my imagination or if Rasswipe is some social anthropologist investigating his perceptions of American people, in this case, black people. Maybe he’s watched Rush Hour or something; maybe he hasn’t. I do know his cell phone goes off at some point LOUDLY and I’m not sure what song it was but I’m fairly certain it was something by 98 Degrees. Um, yeah Rasswipe. You best hurry to shut that off, and you can give me that nervous smile and a hee hee if you want, but it doesn’t make you cute, and no, I’m not gonna dignify that with a means to start talking to you either. Why? Because I don’t wish to talk to you; I am unreachable jokah. Leave me be.
I don’t wonder what Rasswipe thinks of me. I used to operate as though I was on a race crusade, that you had to like me, that if you liked me, you could like other black people, that stereotypes could be challenged and then dismissed, that we’d “all just get along.” But along the way I realized this was just impossibly idealistic. Hell, I don’t even like some other black people. Still, it’s somewhat of a noble thought I suppose, and in some instances I find myself in situations where I know I’ve got to muster the strength to face people’s perceptions. Sometimes I surprise them, but I’ve come to regard “you’re so well-spoken” as something of a token – it’s not worth a lot in most places/situations in life, but in some instances it’ll get you by.
And I realize I stereotype, too. Obviously. I try to reserve it to enhance the humor in situations, but my perceptions are probably no less cruel than those I often rise to meet. Still, isn’t it really something how everywhere, everyone can launch into a rambling tale about annoying co-workers?
One thing I wonder … do you realize that you’re the annoying co-worker? Are you aware your mannerisms are comical, that we’re laughing at and not with you, or we’re hurrying to laugh hoping you’ll move the hell on; do you know you have horrific halitosis, your catchphrases have long since been dropped or never caught on, that we’re at work and who gives a flyin’ flip about how funny your cat is, I don’t care how much you weigh, don’t wanna hear about how long it’s been since you got some; I do really want to ask you why in the hell you’re snacking while selling Girl Scout cookies, cheese logs, sausages and the world’s greatest chocolate bars when you can’t stop whining about the 20 lbs. you need to drop. But I’m not gonna. You get a “hey” and a “goodbye” and you should consider yourself all good. This ain’t the Arc, we ain’t got to come together, but you do need to take your ass back to your own cubicle, workstation or whatever it is you’ve decided is clever to call it because I only get one check which means I’m only doing my work. So please, I beseech you to go sell crazy somewhere else because I, too, am seriously all stocked up here. * * * * * * * Rasswipe is racing me. Again. Seriously exhalin’ to keep from punching his tail in the neck. Have you seen The Upside of Anger with Joan Allen and Kevin Costner? It’s pretty good; Kevin is great in slacker roles. Anyway there’s this part in the movie where one of the daughters (Erika Christensen) has invited her older boyfriend/boss Shep, also one of Denny’s (KC) friends, to dinner. The mother hates him and she’s staring him down, imagining his demise when suddenly his head explodes and splatters everyone with nastiness. She smiles the most satisfactory of sadistic smiles. I think of that as Rasswipe tries to bait me into mindless chatter, when he cranes his neck to see my scores, when he pauses to hear whatever rare question I ask the instructor and then turns around an repeats it, when I see him out of the corner of my eye fidgeting and staring at me trying to think of a way to start talking. I think of atomic bombs, what life as a sniper would be like and how maybe I should take a kickboxing class since I’m beginning to wonder if I really need an outlet – a physical outlet – for all the times I think, “I really oughtta punch you in the neck.”