My feet on my table, and a Cuban cigar
"Hi, it's Sass. Have you got a glass of wine and half an hour?"
It was after 9:00, my time, and it's an hour later in Bermuda, where my best friend Kay lives, but what are best friends for if you can't call them on the spur of the moment, even late at night? Or, say, at 2:00 in the morning, when you need help burying a body?
"Glass of wine is in hand, and yes, I can spare half an hour," Kay replied. "What's up?"
I got right to the point: "Gilbert's driving me crazy. I may have to kill him."
It seemed like such a good idea at the time, me moving back home and going to work for Gilbert's company, with Gilbert and Rex. They both really wanted me there. The three of us had been inseparable in high school; always imagining what we would do if we had the time and the money and, you know, weren't living with our parents. And now, here we were, doing exactly that.
It was great for the first few weeks, but then Work Gilbert, someone I wasn't familiar with, began to rear his ugly head. And Work Gilbert is Mr. Hyde to Friend Gilbert. Friend Gilbert is smart and clever and funny and spontaneous and creative and is both fair-weather and foul-weather friend; a rare combination.
Work Gilbert is argumentative and contrary, a bad listener, and, at his worst, condescending. It's like being interviewed by Stephen Colbert, but without the "Hey, that was great, thanks for letting me pretend to be an idiot while we were talking," that comes afterwards.
I didn't need to explain any of that to Kay, though. After I said I may have to kill him, she didn't miss a beat: "Oh, I know, I would never work for Gilbert!" Kay exclaimed. "He's a nightmare!"
Back in the olden days, the three of us worked for a pre-Internet Internet company, but Gilbert quit a week after I arrived. "How closely did you work with him?" I asked.
"We were in the same department, though I never reported to him. I was close enough to observe how he operates, though. And to decide that I would never, ever, work for him."
I used to joke that my backup plan was to go back to waitressing. It's an awful job, but as I remember there were occasionally fun times, and there was always food. So there's that.
I suppose no one gets everything they want. I loved being a professor, but I hated the place I had to live in to be able to do it. Now I'm home, but not doing what I love. I'm not sure which is better.
In the next story, Rex returns from his vacation in Cuba, and Sass picks him up at the airport.
It was after 9:00, my time, and it's an hour later in Bermuda, where my best friend Kay lives, but what are best friends for if you can't call them on the spur of the moment, even late at night? Or, say, at 2:00 in the morning, when you need help burying a body?
"Glass of wine is in hand, and yes, I can spare half an hour," Kay replied. "What's up?"
I got right to the point: "Gilbert's driving me crazy. I may have to kill him."
It seemed like such a good idea at the time, me moving back home and going to work for Gilbert's company, with Gilbert and Rex. They both really wanted me there. The three of us had been inseparable in high school; always imagining what we would do if we had the time and the money and, you know, weren't living with our parents. And now, here we were, doing exactly that.
It was great for the first few weeks, but then Work Gilbert, someone I wasn't familiar with, began to rear his ugly head. And Work Gilbert is Mr. Hyde to Friend Gilbert. Friend Gilbert is smart and clever and funny and spontaneous and creative and is both fair-weather and foul-weather friend; a rare combination.
Work Gilbert is argumentative and contrary, a bad listener, and, at his worst, condescending. It's like being interviewed by Stephen Colbert, but without the "Hey, that was great, thanks for letting me pretend to be an idiot while we were talking," that comes afterwards.
I didn't need to explain any of that to Kay, though. After I said I may have to kill him, she didn't miss a beat: "Oh, I know, I would never work for Gilbert!" Kay exclaimed. "He's a nightmare!"
Back in the olden days, the three of us worked for a pre-Internet Internet company, but Gilbert quit a week after I arrived. "How closely did you work with him?" I asked.
"We were in the same department, though I never reported to him. I was close enough to observe how he operates, though. And to decide that I would never, ever, work for him."
I used to joke that my backup plan was to go back to waitressing. It's an awful job, but as I remember there were occasionally fun times, and there was always food. So there's that.
I suppose no one gets everything they want. I loved being a professor, but I hated the place I had to live in to be able to do it. Now I'm home, but not doing what I love. I'm not sure which is better.
In the next story, Rex returns from his vacation in Cuba, and Sass picks him up at the airport.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home