I don’t feel like writing an intro to this post about work but I guess I just did. LIFE IS FUNNY THAT WAY.
The Fig Bars
The department boss is way too good to us and keeps a table stocked full of delicious treats. She clearly knows that at the heart of it all, we are truly little children who can be comforted by snacks. It works, it really does. Usually she provides crackers, peanuts, little snack packs of cookies such as Oreos and Nutter Butters, granola bars…but lately, there have been these freaking delicious Fig Bars up in there too. They’re like hipster Fig Newtons, when I really think about it, but so damn good. I’m always complaining about how there need to be more in each package (THERE ARE ONLY TWO?!).
One day last week, Todd walked past my desk on his way back from shopping at the snack table. “These fig things are so good,” he said, which reminded me of their existence, so I felt that I needed to also get up and get one.
Imagine my horror when I rounded the corner to Snack World and the Fig Bar bowl was EMPTY. I didn’t want peanut butter crackers or a Twizzler! I wanted a FIG BAR and TODD took the LAST ONE!
Oh, there was hell to pay when I returned to my desk. I felt like he stabbed me in the back, like he was purposely planting that seed of WANT into my head, when I wasn’t even hungry now that I think about it!
The next day, Glenn was coming inside from lunch and mumbled that there were more Fig Bars out there, so Todd and I literally raced each other down the hall. I won, but the bowl was fully stocked so I don’t really know why we were racing.
Those things are just so delightful! Way better than Fig Newtons. The outer part is all grainy and nutricious-seeming.
I made sure to thank Sue on my way back to my desk because I want her to know that she should never stop providing them. Um, I think we all get more work done too whenever we eat them.
A few days later, I cut off Jeannie when we were both reaching for a Fig Bar at the same time, because I’m ruthless.
Hearing Loss
At our Monday meeting last week, Amber was telling us that our guest speaker wasn’t there that day because she had an ear infection.
“What?” Glenn asked.
After repeating herself, Amber jokingly asked, “Do you have an ear infection too?”
“No, but I honestly can’t hear out of my one ear,” Glenn explained, at which point I started bouncing in my chair, desperate to interrupt.
“IS IT BECAUSE YOU SAT TOO CLOSE TO THE STAGE AT WOODSTOCK!?” I squealed, dying with laughter.
“Oh my god,” Todd sighed, and then Amber had to explain to our co-worker, who was just put on speakerphone in the middle of my outburst, why I was choking to death on laughter. I don’t know why I thought this was so funny but I was doing everything short of patting myself on the back over it.
Later that night, I was trying to recreate the scene for Henry and I started crying because I was laughing so hard.
“It’s not even that funny, but still…” I wheezed.
“You’re right. It’s not that funny,” Henry agreed in that disapproving tone he reserves just for me and Chooch.
Confusing Calendar
A lot of people here hate my Korea countdown calendar because the numbers aren’t displayed in normal calendar fashion. My kpop friend on Instagram was like, “Who’s even looking at the number?!” and I was like, “GIRL YOU KNOW.” That’s not why we buy these things.
Amber asked me if I got the calendar inside Teen Beat and I said, “I wish, it would have been way cheaper that way!” God. Korea goes hard with their yearly planners, you guys. This SHINee one was like $50 or something, I can’t remember now, I always black out after buying something because I hate spending money.
Nate and Sandy were trying to make sense of it the other day but couldn’t. “This calendar is chaos,” Sandy spat, while Nate was half-way to a headstand trying to figure out how much longer until I leave.
It just makes me love it that much more!
Rumors
I realized suddenly after Cheryl sneezed last week that Glenn never says “bless you” after anyone sneezes. I waited until he walked away from his desk before lasso’ing Lauren into the theory quickly developing in my murky mind.
“Lauren,” I whispered hoarsely. “Have you ever noticed that Glenn never says ‘bless you’?”
She considered this for an entire second and then shook her head no. I know she felt bad about it too because she hates saying no to me.
“Well, he doesn’t….do you think he’s a Satanist?” I blurted.
“What? No!” she nervously laughed.
“I’m going to ask him.” And then when Glenn walked past me on his way back to his desk, I casually asked, “Glenn you never say bless you after someone sneezes is it because you’re a Satanist?”
“I can’t believe you just asked him that,” Lauren said, turning around so she wouldn’t have to be involved.
“Wow, that’s really what you came up with because of that?” Glenn asked. “You’re the one with the pentagram rug in your house! Are you recruiting?”
TOUCHÉ, GLENN.
This was better than the time everyone was supposed to wear a certain color to support women and Glenn missed the memo so I tried to spread the rumor that he hated women, but not as good as the time Barb tried to start a rumor for no reason that Glenn is a lesbian.
Speaking of Cheryl sneezing though, she was also choking one day last week too and I stood up and shouted, “CHERYL ARE YOU OK” in the most fake-sincere tone I could muster. Cheryl played along and exaggeratedly thanked me for being so concerned about the status of her windpipe.
“Sickening,” Todd mumbled, while Glenn was suspiciously mute.
Finally, Glenn calmly said, “There’s so many things to say that I just froze up.”
THE LOST WALLET SAGA
I was having a pretty lowkey Friday morning when suddenly, I was nearly to work and realized that I didn’t have my work badge. So, already that’s a sucky feeling because it means you have to go to the security desk, hope they believe you when you say that you really are an employee and not just a recently-canned disgruntled employee back for revenge. But then you’re like, trapped within your department all day too, while trying to remember when you last saw it and if you should email Facilities now or later to report it lost and then be forced to pay for a new one, UGH.
But there was still hope that it was on my desk. I’ve done that many times, left my dumb badge-thing on my desk. But it wasn’t there!
So I went to the kitchen because I was on late shift the night before and I could vividly remember setting it on the table while I was washing my BIGBANG cup. BUT IT WAS NOT THERE.
Now panic was definitely setting in and here’s why: EVERYTHING IS IN THAT BADGE HOLDER. So much of my life is in there that I refer to it as my wallet but it’s not even meant to be a wallet, it’s a Pusheen ID holder and I shove all of my credit cards, my drivers license, my trolley ConnectCard….all of the shit I need everyday, in other words. And this was literally ONE DAY after I swore that I had to go back to using a real wallet after struggling to get my license out of it.
Well, good job Erin because now you’re going to have to get brand new cards to put in the wallet, I sadly thought to myself.
Todd works early on Friday so he was lucky to be there to watch my panic go from 0 to 60. And then Glenn arrived right when I was on a cleaning person-blaming tangent.
I couldn’t focus on anything. My ears were ringing and my face was flushed. Amber walked by and I blurted out that I lost my wallet.
“Oh, I’m sorry, that sucks!” she said.
“It’s OK,” I sighed, and then before she made it around the corner, I turned and shouted, “IT’S NOT OK!”
Cheryl told me to call Reception and see if anyone had turned it in. I was like “FUCK A PHONE CALL” and emailed instead, which got really fun when I reached the point of my email where I had to describe my wallet.
“It’s purple, soft, and shaped like a cat.”
It took AN HOUR for reception to email me back and say, “NO SORRY NOT YET.”
James the mailroom guy came around for the first mail delivery of the day. Before he even had a chance to say hello, I cut him off. “WHAT, DO YOU HAVE MY WALLET?”
“…..no?” he answered nervously. So then I had to fill him in and Glenn and Todd were behind me, making the same eyes at James that elderly patients probably made at Jack Kevorkian.
“Did you check your desk?” he asked, and I was like “Yes duh” even though I only checked one drawer, twice. I just knew it wasn’t in my desk, OK?
OMG why was this happening two weeks before we leave for Korea? Another thing to stress about!
Lori came over to chat about nothing in particular. I let her finish while nervously squirming in my seat, and then I shouted, “I LOST MY WALLET.”
I heard Glenn sigh behind me, but I still launched back into the same story, verbatim.
“And I thought maybe I left it on the table in the kitchen…”
Then I had a thought!
Henry drove me to work that morning. When we were walking out of the house, I noticed that Chooch left his backpack! Luckily his school is right up the street so I told Henry I’d just jump out and run it in. Except that Henry wouldn’t come to a complete stop and I practically had to drop and roll out of the car, and in doing so, I forgot that my purse was on my lap and it fell into the middle of the street! MAYBE MY WALLET FELL OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF PIONEER?!
THAT WOULD BE MY LUCK!
I started thinking about all of the times I found and returned things lost by others: someone’s debit card at an ATM, a wallet on the sidewalk which was luckily right outside the person’s house so I didn’t have to go far, Ross’s Blackberry (technically that was Henry, so me by extension), Jeannie’s work ID!! Maybe I had collected enough Karma for someone else to return my wallet to me!?
Later that morning, Henry had enough of my crazy lady texts, so he drove home on his break and TEXTED ME A PICTURE OF MY WALLET! It was at home that whole time! I had to immediately send an email to everyone in our department who suffered through my sob story and Glenn mumbled, “When’s the movie coming out?”
Then James came down later and I yelled over to him that I found it and he said he had said a prayer for it! MY WALLET IS SO LOVED. Wendy was walking by during this exchange and looked confused, and I realized that she didn’t know about my lost-not-lost wallet so now I had a reason to tell the story again! Todd and Glenn put their earbuds in.
Lauren was working late shift from home that day so she missed this whole thing. Luckily for her, she ended up having to come into the office that afternoon so I got to fill her in. She was like, “Wow. I’m sorry I missed that.”
Whatever. YOU HAD TO BE THERE.