Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Working lateish

Or staying late, avoiding working. Something like.

So the other day I was volenteeeeeering to play with dead plants from the polyester ages. My mentor was in the middle of a important fuck off meeting and was going to have me sit in the back, sorting dried flowers and playing with glue. Reminds me of going to meetings with my parents in my extreme youth.

Speaking of extreme youth- you know how you revisit things that terrified you as a child? How the huge gorilla stuffed animal that you couldn't share a room with at bedtime now seems small and definitely inanimate... How the really scary secretary at your grade school is actually a pleasant woman with bad teeth who babysits guilt struck children on their way to the principal eight hours a day while dealing with nervous parents and actual, you know, secretarial work? Things that through the lens of adulthood are simple, normal, even funny?

Right, yeah. There was a woman at the meeting that I used to be terrified of. She worked with my parents for six odd years, and though I grew older, she never got less scary. I recall a brief visit to her house where I was convinced she would spring for my baby* brother's throat- he seemed unconcerned, and so did my mom, so I tried to stay between the two of them the entire visit- unobtrusively**.

*This was when he was actually a baby, instead of now, when I call him my baby brother to piss him off.
**For a six-year-old

Now, I wasn't sure this woman was her until I was introduced to her and the other woman in the room. I smiled, she said something about knowing me in my youth, I looked her in the eye- and was filled with terror. I swear there were little shrieking dudes in her pupils. I turned to the other woman and said,
"I worked for a man with the same last name as you do you know him?" and she said,
"Oh, you mean my soon-to-be-ex-husband."
"Oh yes," I said, "How is he?"

It just seemed slightly less uncomfortable to say nice things about a boss I hated to his estranged wife than to chat about my youth with _her_.

Course, I mentioned the whole thing to my parents later on. Rolled the story out as a "ho ho, still can not overcome all my childhood fears, so funny" anecdote, which they love. My dad nodded and said
"Yeah, she's the devil." My mom concured;
"Did you see the way she glared at E after he started walking? Awful woman. And she killed a man."
"And had one deported."
"Right. She is the devil."

So... maybe the stuffed gorilla really can move around the room?

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