cramped office
My office space is being sabotaged by a conspiracy of people who pretend to be benign technicians. I think they want to drive me insane in order to usurp my business (I don’t know why yet but it might be because though work has been slowing down in this industry, I am chugging steadilly along). However, I am on to them. They have messed with my software and my hardware all last week. Yesterday, they pulled my modular furniture out from the wall and filled my tiny closet-space of a room with as many people as they could enlist to “test” connections, networks, and cables. I almost melted down but instead I left. Today, I have a plan: I am going to drive them crazy instead with reverse-psychology tactics.
One of the suspected saboteurs is a seemingly delightful woman from Wales. She is digitizing land status parcels with AutoCAD on a tablet about 2’ from my left elbow. She speaks with a charming British dialect that I can mimic by dropping the corners of my mouth and clenching my teeth. She says things like, “My fath-ah was a Welsh min-ah,” (a Welsh miner.)
I told her that I checked out a new health food store across the street. She asked me,
“How did you find it?”
I replied, “I crossed the street.” (Sheesh!)
She fell apart sniggering, “I meant – how did you LIKE it?”
After coaching her on the technique of drawing and closing polylines with my archaic tablet she told me,
“I do believe I’ve got the rub of it!”
To which, I responded with the corners of my mouth drawn down and teeth clenched: “Rub is something we put on buffalo be-foh grilling.” Then, to further throw her off I added,
“Have you evah heard the whales wail while in Wales?”
She was ‘gob-slapped’, (a technical Welsh term.)
“Whhhhhat?” (They use a lot of H-sound in their dialect.) “Do you mean whhhhhhhales in Wales? No, thah ah no whhhhhhales in Wales.” (I’ve noticed that South Africans say “Ovuh they” for ‘over there’, the English say, “Ovah thah” for ‘over there’, and my Texas cousins say, “Ovuh thay-yah” for ‘over there’, whereas I say, “OVERRRR THERRRRRE” for ‘over there’…)
“Did you know the Corinthians served cornichons1 to the Cornitia2 in Corinthia3?” I asked.
“WHHHHaht?” Welsh girl’s gob was evah moh slapped.
“And you can’t elope on an antelope with a cantaloupe.” I added.
No reaction. She was melting down.
“One time in Mexico, I ordered a cold tomato soup at an Italian restaurant and there were nuts in it. I’m allergic to nuts – makes the underneath of my tongue feel bubbly. So, I told the waiter: ‘Despachio! Hay pistachio en mi gazpachio!4’ ”
She left. I think I won.
1cornichon is a little French pickle
2Cornitia was a popular Roman assembly
3Corinthia is a prefecture of Greece
4translation: “Slowdown! There is pistachio in my cold tomato soup!”
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