My life as an errand boy

I am convinced inanimate objects are out to make me look a fool.

This morning, I got to the bottom of four flights of stairs before realizing I'd left my lunch in the freezer. I subsequently returned to collect it, but how did my shrimp thai rice repay me? By flicking itself all over my work station as if making mud pies.

Here was the progression:
1. Upon removing said rice plate from the microwave, it proceeded to wet itself all over the office kitchen counter, necessitating two more buffer plates as a diaper.

2. But apparently it needed to leak some more, because it provided a repeat performance once I strolled the four paper plates to my personal desk.

3. Then, completely eschewing all decorum, rice jumped from my fork onto the "f" key, whence I carried out damage control with my last available napkin.

4. But, oh no, playtime was not over. It had to test its limits, and when I looked up, a second stray grain of rice had somehow made its way to the computer screen, igniting a red flush across my embarrassed cheeks. By this point it was so late in the afternoon that I was the only staff member eating, and I didn't want to draw anymore attention to my heaping pile of caloric intake. But alas, it had other ideas.

5. Thinking I had silenced the devil, I went about responding to wayward e-mail messages and enjoying a few quiet minutes surfing the Web. With one last scrape of my plate, I tossed it into my cubicle's trash can, glad the whole power struggle versus my lunch was over. But then my hand brushed past my neck. What!? There, a third piece of rice had escaped unsupervised! And it had been hiding in the crook of my collar bone for the past 15 minutes. How humiliating! How many a fashionista had shot a sorry sigh my way, unbeknownst to me?



I guess I should have caught on yesterday after the elevators' conniving attack on my reputation. Whoever created the device should be prosecuted as a terrorist. Not only are elevators incubators of social discomfort (ie. the whole "I have on new underwear" routine), but as happened to me, they can point out all your insecurities and poke fun at you in front of your peers.

At Hearst, in order to rise any higher than the 28th floor, you must use the 29th as a cross platform for the rest of the tower. So on yesterday's errand, I descended to the 16th floor to pick up a DVD, went back up to the 29th, crossed out and over to the other hallway, delivered said disc up to the 41st, dropped back down to 29, out and over to the first hallway, and returned to home base on the 17th. Did I mention that my ears pop with each elevator excursion?



Oh! And the elevators must have been in cahoots with the entryways to each floor. Since we are on such tight lock-down, you are assigned an ID card which allows access only to your floor of employment. So to gain entrance into the camp of any sister station, you must hail the hall phone to contact your employee of choice.

What I still can't seem to figure out is the instructional process one must follow to render these phones functional. After pushing the 4-digit code, the person on the other line was left calling, "Hello?" with seemingly no response from me. What they didn't know was that I was futilely but forcefully returning each salutation, echoing in the corridor but making no connection across the phone lines. I resorted to scuttling through closing doors, sneaking in behind some unsuspecting native of that particular office.

And I didn't even get a tip. :)