Returning from the restroom, I commented on how my new jeans drag when I walk. "It’s like they were made for long people," I complained.

A few seconds of silence passed and then Eleanore said, "Tall. Tall people, babe."

Then Collin killed my poinsettia. I gave him one job and he failed. Done went and kilt my flower.

But then Kim brought out a cookie cake for Bob’s birthday and I was all, "Ooh, pretty flaming cookie with icing" and then it took Bob longer than an emphysemic ninety-year-old to blow out the candles while I bounced from foot to foot in sugar anticipation.

I was sad to discover, after the cookie-eating festivities dwindled down to a dull roar, that Collin deleted the picture I took of him and my dead plant. I liked it because it was a great comparison shot of the different genera of patheticness that exist in the world.

I tried to sneak a picture of him from the other side of his cubicle wall, but I’m not long enough.

Collin likes looking at womens shoes online. And singing about Apple Bottom jeans and cyclones.

Last night, I accused Kim of having a crush on this dude Jonathon who sits clear on the other side of the building but when he comes over to visit, she adopts a voice that we don’t hear when she’s speaking to us, her lowly employees.

Collin disagrees about Kim having a special "Hey baby" voice and claims that she’s used the same dulcet tones on him before, but Collin is also widely known for flattering himself.

After spreading this new sordid rumor via email, Kim came over to check on us and when she casually mentioned Jonathon in conversation, I promptly burst into childish giggles. She of course became struck by paranoia and kept asking, "No seriously, are you laughing at me?"

Finally I blurted out, "I think you have a crush on Jonathon!"

Her face quickly flushed and she spat out limp denials. "He’s only like, twenty-five!"

But the color of her cheeks gave away her true feelings. Then she made a slanderous remark about how I get a crush on every guy who walks through the door.  I vehemently denied this and turned to Eleanore to back me up. "No you don’t babe," Eleanore mumbled with little interest. "Just every other."

****

Henry and I are going to the roller derby bout on Saturday and we’re tentatively calling it a date. Hopefully I’ll get a crush on him by then. Perhaps if he walks through the door here something will develop, according to Kim.

Well, I made it an hour and eighteen minutes here at work before calling Collin a name, and I don’t even have the satisfaction of saying it was for using something awesome, like "dickgagger" or "albinoblower." No, I called him the very vanilla G-rated insult of "jerk." What is this, 1946? Jeepers, I’m progressive. I think that this shouldn’t count.

Bob has been initiated into the bizarre world of interacting with Tina. Before she left yesterday, she stopped by and was holding two DVDs. They had a brief discourse about it, wherein Bob said, "I’ve never seen either of these." (I was only partially paying attention, but I believe they were Million Dollar Baby and one of them there low-brow comical pitchurs with lots of those hi-larious fart jokes.) And then Tina said, "They are really good. Here, you can look at them." (Tina never uses contractions.) Bob looked at them with mild interest and gave them back. I waited for her to say he could borrow them, but then I remembered that Tina has nothing to gain from being generous to males. Bob said she stopped by on her way out today. I didn’t want to try and recreate a scene I wasn’t a part of, because I’m all about accuracy (Collin laughed when I said that), so here it is in Bob’s own words:

T: Hey, ya watch the movie yet?

B: Uhhh, what movie?

T: Million Dollar Baby.

B: Oh, haha, give me a week or two and I’ll see it.

T: Oh, that’s fine. Take your time.

B: What do you mean?

T: I gave it to you yesterday. You were looking at it. I know because I only brought one DVD home with me.

B: Haha, you’re kidding. Right?

T: No I’m not.

I wasn’t there, but I like to imagine that Tina’s face was flushed with growing fury and that she had her arms akimbo with her pelvis jutted slightly; she hawked into a spittoon with her cracked lips all a-pucker. Initially, I also imagined that an ominous breeze blew back her mullet, but then I remembered that she sheared that motherfucker off a few weeks ago so now instead of looking like a sock-stuffed crotch ready to mingle with the Rosie O’Donnell impersonators at the weekend clam bake, she looks like a fifty-five year old man.

Bob confirmed that her face was, in fact, quite red, and that he was waiting for her to laugh and say she was joking, but she honestly believes that she lent him a DVD. I was there yesterday though, and I can vouch that she walked away with both movies. Bob even said he had no real interest in borrowing either of them.

He seems a little spooked by his run-in with her, but Tina likes me because I have boobs so I’ll snuff out any flames that might ignite on Monday. Although, she was in the military. Imagine how many kinds of knots she knows how to tie.

1. We ordered hoagies at work and I forgot to put in my implicit request for any and all onions to be removed from mine so now I’m sitting here pulling them out of my mouth and I keep imagining that they’re earthworms. One will slip past me occasionally and the crunch it makes between my molars makes me want to bleed out. How is something capable of being crunchy and slimy all at once? Aren’t those two things diametrically opposed? I’m in Hell is what’s going on here. Fucking onions, they can ruin any meal. I’m doubly swoll about this because the last time we ordered from this place was the night Chooch had his accident and I had to leave work and head straight to Children’s Hospital. I forgot the second half of it was in my purse, and by the end of the night it was all balled up and squished, but I still ate it the next day for lunch. At least it didn’t HAVE ONIONS ON IT. Seriously, whoever decided that onions were OK to eat? Fuck an onion. Additionally, my sandwich was wrapped in a sheet of industrial paper large enough to cover a picnic table, making my re-wrapping attempt awkward and frustrating at best.

2. Wednesday was the first work fight I had since Tina moved to day shift. Collin told me to "die, I don’t care;" and I can’t lie to the Internets: it stung. (By the way, this was completely unprovoked.) I proceeded to not talk to him for the rest of the shift, until toward the end when he and Bob were talking about Rocky Horror Picture Show. You probably couldn’t tell, but I’m one of those people that has to chime in on topics close to the heart. Plus, I like to remind people that I know a lot about a lot (OK, everything). Collin said something crusted with PMS, I believe it was: "Oh, you’re talking now?" I mean, I tried real hard to achieve his suggestion that I "die," but was unsuccessful. Then we had to have a powwow about how to keep interoffice relationships harmonious. I hope he took something away from that (and not just the joy of finding out he made me cry) because I’m serious about asking for a seat change! He was nice yesterday and he’s kind of being OK so far tonight, although I think he implied earlier that I’m dumb. I don’t know what’s up with this week, but there appears to be an epidemic of men developing bleeding vaginas, because Henry was being douche-tastic, too. I felt like dropping some Pamprin in their drinks. Jesus Christ.

3. An order for five animal masks has been placed. Photo shoot on the horizon, reserve your spot soon, holla at yo’ mamas.

4. "X French Tee Shirts" won’t stop looping through my head, and every time Craig Wedren sings the word ‘down,’ I feel suicidal. I should have ordered me a shotgun, too.

“My Chiodos hoodie is on backorder!” I whined after checking the order status.

“What’s that?” Bob asked, just to be an asshole.

“‘Chiodos’….that sounds like the name of a cereal,” Collin added, taking a break from writing in his diary about his fantasy picnic with Tatu and Peter Cetera.

“Honey frosted Chiodos,” Bob laughed.

I told him to shut up, but frankly, if that cereal was on the shelves, I’d buy it.

Collin is listening to Tatu.

Edit 11:02pm: Now he just spilled his tea.

That’s what happens to boys who listen to Tatu every night.

Halfway through my second night in the new seat over here in the tainted TERRORtory, I was called an elitist by Collin, who then went on to say that post-rock sucks which made the tendon in my right arm pulsate. (It still is.) Go listen to some more Tatu, fagwagon.

Then Bob was looking at my art and when he said he liked one in particular, I quickly chimed in that it was inspired by Chiodos.

"What’s that?" he asked.

"Uh, they’re only like my second favorite band right now." I was insulted that he didn’t know.

Collin said, "How could you not know? It’s only all she ever talks about."

"Yeah, I heard that, but I just never cared to ask what it was."

###$$%%&%^$#

Also, I’ve appointed myself LOL Patrol because sometimes Collin replies to my emails with "lol" but now that I sit RIGHT NEXT TO HIM, I know that he’s not really laughing out loud. I’m going to make a LOL Police hat and pass out tickets. And warrants too.

Edit 9:16pm: Collin is listening to "Glory of Love." I glanced over and he was lip-synching happily.

Bob is disgusted.

Bob was dramatically waving his arms in the air, when Kim walked by and asked what he was doing. He told her he was making fun of the music Collin’s listening to, and she asked how we could hear it.

"Because it’s so loud," I said.

"It’s OK, I wanted to hear shitty music," Bob muttered.

A few minutes later, he asked, "Isn’t there another band with a city name?"

Collin said, "Boston."

"Yeaaaah," Bob said, making us think he was going to say they rawk. "I don’t like that band, either."

I had to fashion my own privacy wall. It’ll do for now, but I’m thinking I’ll have to bring in some duct tape, peanut butter and a sheet of drywall in order to MacGyver something proper-like; something that would make Walter Ulbricht proud.

It’s really boring over here. Collin’s hobby is “looking at cars,” and that’s all he does here.

I was hoping he’d be into something less vanilla, like perhaps handling snapping turtles or wearing studded leather masks while eating buttered popcorn jelly beans.

I thought for sure I’d move over here and be awash in talk of strippers and the Cuban mafia and Lithuanian knife-fighting.

Not so much. I get to hear about custom paint jobs. And horsepower and torque, which would be awesome if it had anything to do with sex.

I might turn this site into an 8-hour Collin/Bob watch, because they’re just that interesting. I’ll be back later, perhaps to report on Bob’s refilled coffee mug.

Dear world,

This is my first post from my new seat. I made it here safely and unpacked without any injury to report. I am slightly frightened by the giant party of electrical wires to my left.

My new garbage can is bigger and is fitted with a proper-sized bag, unlike my old one which had a very taut bag that wasn’t inviting for any trash I may have had. (I’d toss in an empty bottle and it would sometimes spring back out.)

And there’s no divider, so Collin can spy on me with ease. (And he has been!) I remedied this by sliding over my photo board thing. You can’t spy on a spy!

He and Bob talk about dumb stuff. Like jeep colors.

The two Judases made butter rum coffee but apparently those of us who break down in the middle of the street aren’t invited to join their coffee club.

So I just went ahead and stole a cup.

Eleanore (Judas#1) sits behind me now. In our old area, we didn’t have plastic mats under our seats. Now we do and Eleanore is taking advantage by methodically tapping her foot and I kind of want to scalp her.

I have fewer drawers, no coat hook, cream colored cabinets and drawers which do not complement my aura of mystique, it’s louder and colder over here, and I’m sure I’ll rack up a few more pages of complaints by the end of the week.

You know what’s severely disheartening? When you pull out of the parking lot after work, only to have your steering wheel lock up and the car completely shut off, leaving you perpendicular to the flow of traffic, and then two of your co-workers go out of their way to drive around you while you’re waving frantically because you’re unable to find the button for the flashers since it’s your boyfriend’s mother’s car that you’re driving and you can barely think straight what with the impending fear of being t-boned and you’re so freaked out that your knee caps are tingling and it’s like your capacity to form logical solutions has rusted and seized up. I was so afraid I was looking at a replay of the Great BreakDown of Summer 2007. Boy, I nearly choked on the strong sense of humanity at that moment. I mean, would it have killed one of them to at least stop and help me get the car off of the road? Or maybe say, "Hey, let me wait with you in case you can’t get your car started"? I’ve worked with these people for over a year now! OK, Joe is a worthless piece of shit to be fair, but et tu Eleanore? Et tu? Say what you will about Tina, but if she was still working the evening shift, she’d have bailed me out without blinking an eye. (Now that I think about it, have I ever seen Tina blink?) After I was able to let the car drift backward into the parking lot and got it to restart, I cried silently on the drive home.

This is my last night in my original seat. Kim and Eleanore have already been moved so I’ve spent the night over here, alone, and with heightened senses. Every little sound makes my heart gallop. I feel isolated and fearful for my safety. And sanity, but when am I not?

I took down all the pictures of Chooch which have decorated my overhead cabinets for the past year, and the bare blackness of it has created an annoying glare in my peripheral and Collin just jumped out at me, causing me to steamroll him all the way back to the hallway.

Asshole!

Two more hours, and I’ll have to say goodbye to my beloved cube #954.

Tomorrow I’ll move to the seat next to my MORTAL ENEMY, Collin, who got to experience his virginal dose tonight of Eleanore’s grating phone conversations.

Pros: No more Gum Girl. Not having my boss Kim sitting behind me, yelling at me for typing too much and telling me my hair looks like crap.

Cons: Being a foot away from Collin, and reuniting with Eleanore (who, don’t get me wrong, I like, but her bad moods tend to rub off on me).

Oh my god, I’m choking on a honey wheat pretzel and there’s no one here to hear me.

I’m dying. I could blame this on Collin.

I’M BEING MOVED NEXT FRIDAY TO A NEW SEAT AND I’M VERY UPSET ABOUT THIS. I LIKE MY SEAT AND I HATE CHANGE AND THIS IS REALLY FUCKING GAY.

I’ll chain my ass to my fucking desk if I have to. Or quit. Yeah, maybe I’ll just quit!

There’s one pro, though: I’ll be far away from Gum Popper.

Eleanore keeps saying things like, "Babe, I don’t know why you’re complaining. You’re moving to the best seat!" Still, this is really fucking unacceptable.

I’m working 12-8 today since it’s Christmas Eve. At first, I was angry to be here so early, since I have to endure the Gum Popper and the Lady with the Laugh (today it sounds like she’s sucking back an entire circus of albinos down the back of her throat and Collin actually had me contemplating the kinkiness of this until I remembered what she looks like).

But then, something magical happened: Santa came.

Yes, SANTA. Here. And I got to have my picture taken with him! And his skanky, over-aged elf tossed a broken mini candy cane into my hand!

Due to all of the excitement, I forgot to tell him that I really want this for Christmas:

(Ew, the lady next to me just laughed and it sounded like a phlegm water fall was going to shoot from her nose. When she was through sonically assaulting me, she mused, "That’s another thing I need to get at the store — tissues." YA THINK.)