It was a state government PARTY. At her house (aka, cube). Since my iPod wouldn’t cover it up, I had to hear. They were all giddy about the big department lunch scheduled for 11:30 (when the state bell rings, I have gathered). So, starting about 8:30am, they printed the restaurant menu from the website and had discussions about what they’d order, what they liked and didn’t like AND WHY. “Do you like spinach?” “Well, I like raw spinach like in salads, but not cooked spinach.” “Yea, I don’t like cooked carrots, but I like raw carrots.” “Really? Now, see, I like cooked carrots.”

This spawned other hours-long discussions, you know, as office discussions among productive members of society tend to do, about food shopping, recipes, operating the TiVo, AT&T, golf, unclaimedmoney.com, death certificates, the pub (her haunt) and throwing up but not really being sick discussions.

The one that stopped everyone in their tracks, though, was about crepes on the restaurant’s menu. It confused ‘em. They all asked each other, “What’s a crepe?” “I don’t know.” “Do you know?” “No, I don’t know.” “Well, let me look it up,” Miss Honey said. Which she did and then became the crepe spokesperson. “It’s like a tortilla,” she explained. “Ohhhh,,” they all said in unison. But they all decided they didn’t want to order crepes. Or tortillas.

I had such hope that they’d wear themselves out and be quiet(er) after lunch, but no dice. Discussions after lunch were around the soup, the bill, the tea, the walk there, the weather, mowing the grass, and on and on and on. Until quitting time when they all said things like, “One more day down” and “Will Friday ever get here?” and “What a long day” and “I’m so tired.” Parties can wear out a yayhoo.

As a contractor and freelancer, I have sat next to some real yayhoos in my day, but it’s always the current one that I think I’ll remember most.

Her name is Miss Honey.

Miss Honey, who has no inkling about an inside voice, talks and talks and talks and talks. And then Miss Honey talks some more. I’d say eight hours a day, but you wouldn’t believe me, even though it’s true. She never runs out of people to talk to. They stop by her cubicle all day long. Sometimes, folks call her on the phone. The casino, the pub the night before, she drank too much, she smoked too much, playing cards, playing the lottery, her boyfriend, her yard, how bad she feels that day. Just when you think she can’t come up with a new topic, she’ll talk Sudoku. On particularly slow days for Miss Honey’s department, she and Bob, who sits behind her, can work a puzzle for hours.

As if this weren’t enough, her bestie, Marty, who works on a different floor and also has no inside voice, drops in for his two break times and his lunch hour to eat, read the paper, shoot the shit, and also play Sudoku.

Any woman this popular must be like a prom queen, no? Men buzzing around her all day long, she just has to be the cutest bee in the hive. But, how could she be a delicate flower when she has a smoker’s hack and voice, does Tarzan yawns all day long (tired from the pub, I guess), belches violently, and goes into way too many manly details of grossness about her daily nausea spells?

Then, I saw Miss Honey in the hall. Sometimes, there is no explanation for dynamics in the trailer park, because Miss Honey is a beast. A trucker. Fifty was a few years back, long, thin, stringy hair down her back, a face that has possibly seen a better day, and sporting an all-day windbreaker over button down un-tucked shirts, jeans and big ol’ man-boot style shoes.

This paradox will be an unsolved mystery. I can live with that. But, imagine being a writer amidst all this. Not only am I required to WORK, I’m required to THINK about my WORK. So, I started having pains. Then, I got mad. Then, I’d cry. I had to talk myself out of bowing out every day.

Then, one morning, I had a long shower talk with God and came to the conclusion that I have rights to be a beast, too. So, I talked to management. Repeatedly and consistently. I suppose I have to admit she got a little better, but a little better was still unbearable.

So, I said it. “I am billing you for hours when I can get no work done. Maybe another writer could tolerate this situation better than I.”

Miss Honey was spoken to and didn’t come into the office the next day. Or the next day. And the next day, she had a heart attack. Let me repeat that. A HEART ATTACK. Dear God, this was better than had I won the lottery!!

She called her department friends one by one with an angioplasty play-by-play, if you will. Sometimes I was lucky enough to hear her voice through their phones. I was on the edge of my seat. She thought she’d be back to work by the end of the week. Then, maybe it would take two weeks. Finally, SIX WEEKS! Miss Honey will be out of the office for SIX GLORIOUS WEEKS!!! I went to the bathroom to cry with glee, officially a new, albeit horrible, person.

Bestie Marty still comes a-callin’ when the bell in his head rings for his break and lunch time, but my iPod can drown out a lot of him. I guess he misses the aura of her. On particularly sentimental days, he’ll sit in her cube and call her on the phone.
Then, I received a call from a friend who has had a cubicle neighbor nightmare for over a year. Hers talked all the time, too, but to her. The woman was in a wheelchair, so, she’d wheel up to my friend’s cubicle opening and sit and talk and talk and talk (through her gallons of old-lady Coty perfume). My friend tried everything to make it look like she was in the middle of something important, but the woman wouldn’t budge and there was no escape.

Like icing on the cake, the woman died Friday!

We had a prim, proper conversation about it, for a minute. “Oh, that’s so sad. I’m so sorry. But she had so many health problems and things were so hard for her. She’s in a better place now. She’s at peace.”

Then: “So am I, so am I.”

**Walk = Smoke Break (we encourage these because of the several minutes of peace)

The woman I sit next to is extremely popular. Honey is part of her name, if that’s any help. When she arrived at the office late one morning, I counted seven people of the male persuasion who stumbled over each other to get to her cube to ask about her doctor’s appointment. And tell them, she did. For about 45 minutes. Never taking a breath to change the subject to anyone but herself and her aches and pains. Her audience didn’t seem to mind.

But, the funny part of this (it’s still funny on Day 3 – ask me on Day 30), is lunchtime. The soda can pops open at 11:30 on the dot. A man named Marty comes up about 6 minutes later to join her for lunch in her cube. (At around 11am, people start asking her if Marty’s coming for lunch, to which she repeatedly replies, “I think so”.) I don’t know what their relationship is, but they seem to be really good friends. Sometimes, they just chew. Sometimes, they chat. But all the time, they play Sudoku.

So, the lunch hour goes like this: “What about a 3?” “We need a 4.” “I know we need a 4, but what about the 6 down here?” “I don’t know, maybe a 2?” “How about a 7?” “Try 3.” “Oh wait, 4.” “5.” “9.” “1.” “3.”. And so on and so on and so on.

Yeah, ask me on Day 30.

Comforted by my chemical make-up that keeps me moving on, by the freedom in knowing better, and by the love of change and adventure and new things – it’s just the best time in, well, way too long.

“Yea, I’m in the office, but I’m going to call around today and try to get a doctor’s appointment. I feel like shit and it’s not going away. I know I have a temperature, man.”

Did Sunny D complain then? No, she didn’t. Should she have? Absolutely.

Huey never took a day off. He was out for a while one day, I assume at said doctor’s office. But for over a month, Huey coughed, sneezed, spit, sniffed, and grunted and gagged on his own snot in varying degrees but every day and all day.

In Week 3, Sunny D decided to do some calculations to distract her from the madness. In 15 minutes, there were 38 bodily function noises coming from his cubicle. That means, that for every 8-hour day, there are over 1200. You can imagine the effect this has on a person.

So, I threw a pack of Kleenex on his desk and said, “It’s a wacky new invention you might try.” He said thank you, but it didn’t really dawn on him what I meant by it.

In just a minute or two, Huey comes to my cubicle entrance. Says, “Ya know, if you have such issues with cubicle noise, maybe you should get a job where you can work in an office.”

Huey was going to try to insult Sunny D!!!! I couldn’t believe it.

So, I said: “That would be a good argument, except for two things: 1) No noise that comes out of you is office noise and 2) I’m not the only one complaining about you. People have complained about you before I got here and they probably will after I leave. But besides the usual noises and smells coming from you, your being sick in the office is inexcusable. You actually came in here to call your doctor one day! You’ve been sick for three weeks now because you refuse to stay home or take minimal precautions. And you choose to spread yourself all over this office. These are things that to most are normal common courtesy, normal ways to behave in public – and you are in public – your cubicle is not your kitchen, it is not your bedroom, it is not your bathroom as much as you seem to think it is.”

And do you know what Huey said? (Here is where you should sit down or take a shot of something alcoholic.)

“Well, I try to blow my nose but nothing comes out.” Something that might be said to your mother when you’re sick AND FIVE YEARS OLD.

Sunny D was speechless. For a second. “Again. Is that an appropriate thing to say in public and to a perfect stranger? What comes out of your nose is not my problem. Wait, I stand corrected. It IS my problem because YOU are my problem. And everyone else’s around you. So, thank you very much. We all thank you.”

He sat back down and I am happy to report that, since this minor confrontation, ol’ Huey has been on his best behavior. I hope it’s because he’s embarrassed, but I’m not sure he has that much of a thought process in him.

I actually thought of telling him how much I appreciate his newfound consideration with a gold star, but I feel like that would be rewarding him for how he should act in the first place.

She walks around a lot. She has a boss who works in a different city and she runs reports each month for him. Since that’s her job, you can imagine her free time.

To wander. And spread her smells. It just wafts all over the area. It’s like working in a brothel. I imagine. And what’s crazy odd about it is that the smell is as strong in the late afternoon as it is in the morning. I’m not so sure she doesn’t reapply throughout the day.

But, here’s the added bonus. She coughs constantly. A normal person could connect the two, but I don’t consider her normal. She’s also the taping person and there’s more where that came from.

I’d like to get her in a room alone for a minute. So, I can explain to her what should and shouldn’t be in public and how she can solve her nagging cough. She’d never get it, but I’d feel like I had done a public service for a second or until the next cough or walk-around.

Little Jakey’s in the 4H club at school and he’s real interested in raising goats or pigs or some farm animal. So, they got him one and he showed it at the State Fair.

Oh, how wonderful, they all exclaim. That’s such a good thing for kids to be involved in.

Then one guy chimed in:

“Some of my favorite childhood memories were walking home and stopping at the McKay’s farm to help them in the afternoons. They’d give me little chores to do and I loved it. And I liked learning all about how they handle the animals.

Do you know how they de-nut a hog?”

Because there was no escape route, I now know how this is done. Why it’s done, I do not know and don’t really care to know, but maybe the how part’ll be a question in a board game one day and I can win something.

But I have noticed that each month, without fail, there is one boy there who is always sick. By sick, I mean one foot in the hospital sick. His coughs and sneezes are so painful to hear that someday I’m sure body parts are going to come out his nose and throat.

Last week, he was sick, of course. Coughing constantly. A lady I’ve only seen once or twice, but who I think is the HR Manager, came over to ask him about his condition.

“Should you be here?”

“Yea, I should.”

“I can hear you from my office.” (Her office is on the opposite end of a fairly large building.)

“Really.”

“I think you need to go home.”

“Well, I think we should be given more sick days.”

“Why don’t you just go smoke another cigarette, then?”

Culprit identified. Dude’s a smoker. I used to be a smoker, so I understand that level of sickness. There’s no such thing as a little cold. Intensity and recovery time are ten-fold. But this ass thinks he needs more sick days to compensate for the consequences of his addiction.

“Good one.” (And then the boys around him join in to take up for him and his 30-day sick plan idea.)

“You have to manage your time. You guys are big boys over here. You need to make big boy decisions. You’re affecting everyone around you when you are in the office this sick.”

“Like I said before, we need more sick days.”

“I graduated from IUPUI in Construction Management.”

“I’m excited and ready to get going on some projects.”

The meeting is not positive. This change and that. Not being received well by employees. No preparation, no guidance, no big-picture thought among top executives making decisions that force new software, new processes, blah blah blah.

Everyone stands up to leave. Manager over two new employees says to his boss:

“Man, this place is going downhill fast. If the economy weren’t so bad, folks would be running for the doors to get out of here.” Boss wholeheartedly agrees.

Two new boys hear. Still look hopeful. They’re young.