the bag broke

I’m sitting at my dank, dirty, depressing, disturbing cubicle at work. White Flag’s “Glass Tambourine” is playing in my ears, drowning out the worthlessness I feel at still being employed here after almost two years.

My original plan was to go a year, and they blow the joint and head west and south. New Orleans of course. Maybe even take a friend with me. Life detoured those plans a little, but I like to think that I’m just being responsible, not scared. Or lazy. Or just unmotivated. Well, the last one is certainly a flaw I possess. I don’t think the other ones still fit me. They have at times, but now I’m no longer scared of things.

Right before the song ends, he walks in. You can’t miss his shuffling way of stomping. It makes me think that an elephant that had a stroke is wearing those modern tennis shoes that seem more like moccasins is coming towards me.

He’s huffing and puffing as usual as well. Both arms full of fast food purchases. It appears today it’s all McDonald’s fare. “I can hear you getting fatter,” is my only response inside my head.

Grimace, as I’ve taken to calling him, is angry today, however. He shuffles past me arms full of wrapped up chemical goodness and deadly as Sarin Gas foodstuff.

He tosses some of his holdings onto the desk. Placing two drinks down gingerly. He picks one up and takes a long swig from the straw. It’s obviously some kind of shake as he has to struggle to get some liquid goodness to enter his mouth. He slurps and then burps, wiping his chin and mouth with his sleeve on his three sizes too small Bob Mould 2008 concert tour shirt.

His eyes look down towards his desk. A lone cheeseburger sits on his keyboard. He picks it up, standing up in the process and slings it at his cubicle wall.

“Damn it!” he yells. “My fucking bag broke. I can’t believe my fucking bag broke!”

All of us look at each other in unison. One of us is going to laugh, I know it. Mitchell knows it. Joshua knows it. Hell, even troll knows it.

I look away and put my hoodie on. I’m the one who breaks. A cackle comes out of my mouth and it feels oh so good. Not as good as the first sip of a beer after doing some roofing work or the smell of a woman’s body for the first time, but damn it did feel good.

“I had to pick everything up and carry in here without a bag! That’s just so wrong!” he continued.

The troll waddled over to his desk. Looking down at him with her soul-less eyes.

“But at least they gave you two shakes,” she said to him.

“I know! I only paid for one too!” that seemed to perk up the giant beast.

He grabbed one of his cheesburgers and ate half of it in one bite.

“Damn it! I ordered no pickles!” he said right before spitting the half chewed remnants of that half a burger into his hands. He pulled out the pickle piece and threw the rest back in his mouth.

Once again, all of us looked at each other. Then the floor. This was getting old.

“Hey Mitchell, want to go grab a drink?” I said.

“Can’t bro. Have to finish this front. Then get to work on my project.”

“Same project you’ve been talking about for two years?” I asked rather pompously.

“Yep,” Mitchell replied. “Just like that book you’ve been writing.”

“Touche.”

“Touche, indeed,” the troll said.

Joshua let out a wicked witch-esque laugh and put his ear buds back on. Certainly listening to some Dane Cook, I guessed.

Meanwhile the boss kept tapping out the beats to whatever awful 1980s R & B song he was listening to on Youtube. It never ceased to amaze me how off beat someone could be. It reminded me of a kid learning how to dance for the first time with his grandmother or his father teaching him.

“One, two, three, ugh.”

“One, two, three… Crunch. Shit!”

“One, two, ugh.”

“One, two, three, four!!!!”

Meanwhile, I started to feel back for Grimace. Not because he was such a disgusting human being. But more the fact that he probably hadn’t had sex. Ever. Unless he paid for it. Of course, I used to feel sorry for myself. But I was 18 years old.

“Back to work,” I thought to myself.

“Chomp, chomp, chomp.”

“Tap, tap, tap, tap.”

“Buuuuuuuuuuuuurp!”

Another day in paradise. I put on the Descendants “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” and wish I hadn’t.